was ignorant.[21]

Having thus sacrified one half of the preacher's arguments, the Duke
of Argyll proceeds to make equally short work with the other half. It
appears that he fully accepts my position that the occurrence of those
events, which the preacher speaks of as catastrophes, is no evidence
of disorder, inasmuch as such catastrophes may be necessary occasional
consequences of uniform changes. Whence I conclude, his Grace agrees
with me, that the talk about royal laws "wrecking" ordinary laws may
be eloquent metaphor, but is also nonsense.

And now comes a further surprise. After having given these superfluous
stabs to the slain body of the preacher's argument, my good ally
remarks, with magnificent calmness: "So far, then, the preacher and
the professor are at one." "Let them smoke the calumet." By all means:
smoke would be the most appropriate symbol of this wonderful attempt
to cover a retreat. After all, the Duke has come to bury the preacher,
not to praise him; only he makes the funeral obsequies look as much
like a triumphal procession as possible.

So far as the questions between the preacher and myself are concerned,
then, I may feel happy. The authority of the Duke of Argyll is ranged
on my side. But the Duke has raised a number of other questions, with
respect to which I fear I shall have to dispense with his
support--nay, even be compelled to differ from him as much, or more,
than I have done about his Grace's new rendering of the "benefit of
clergy."

In discussing catastrophes, the Duke indulges in statements, partly
scientific, partly anecdotic, which appear to me to be somewhat
misleading. We are told, to begin with, that Sir Charles Lyell's
doctrine respecting the proper mode of interpreting the facts of
geology (which is commonly called uniformitarianism) "does not hold
its head quite so high as it once did." That is great news indeed.
But is it true? All I can say is that I am aware of nothing that has
happened of late that can in any way justify it; and my opinion is,
that the body of Lyell's doctrine, as laid down in that great work,
"The Principles of Geology," whatever may have happened to its head,
is a chief and permanent constituent of the foundations of geological
science.

But this question cannot he advantageously discussed, unless we take
some pains to discriminate between the essential part of the
uniformitarian doctrine and its accessories; and it does not appear
that the Duke