identify with the Giant Deer of Ireland.

[59] See note [56] on p. 68.

[60] M.S. H. ii. 13.

[61] _Blackwood's Magazine_, January 1849.

[62] "Travels," 4th ed., 1677.

[63] Sloane MSS., No. 1839.

[64] _Zoologist_, p. 4298.

[65] _British Birds_, iii. 477, (Ed. 2.)

[66] Dr Charlton, in the _Trans. Tyneside Nat. Hist. Soc._

[67] _Nat. Voy._, ch. ix.

[68] Lecture; reported in the _Athenaeum_ for May 21, 1859.

[69] _Nat. Voyage_, ch. viii.

II.

THE MARVELLOUS.

The vulgar mind is very prone to love the marvellous, and to count for a
prodigy every unusual phenomenon, every occurrence not perfectly
accountable on any hypothesis which is familiar to them. The poetical
period of history in every country is full of prodigies; for in the dawn
of civilisation the physical laws of nature are little understood, and
multitudes of natural phenomena are either referred to false causes, or,
being unreferrible to any recognised cause, are set down as mere
wonders. It is the province of science to dispel these delusions, to
expose the undiscovered, but by no means undiscoverable, origins of
unusual events, and thus to be continually narrowing the limits of the
unknown. These limits, however, have not even yet quite reached the
minuteness of a mathematical point; and there are a few marvels left for
the indefatigable rummagings of modern science to explain.

Perhaps the predominant tendency of uneducated minds in the present day
is rather to attribute effects to _false_ causes, than to leave them
without any assignable cause. It is much easier for an unreasoning
person to say that Tenterden steeple is the cause of Goodwin Sands, than
to leave Goodwin Sands quite unaccounted for; or to say, the plant-lice
suddenly appear crowding the rose-twigs, "the east wind has cast a
blight," or "it is something in the air," than "I do not know how to
account for their appearance." To a reflecting person, indeed, who
weighs forces, the east wind appears as incompetent to the production of
living animals as the tall tower to the origination of a sand-bank; and
this, though he might be able to suggest nothing a whit more competent.
What should he do in such a case? Manifestly this--test the actual
existence and conditions of the phenomenon; see that it really has
occurred; and, if the fact cannot be denied, admit it as a fact, and
wait further light as to its causation.

I do not by any means presume to declare the un