history.  The fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Geological Club (in 1824) was, if I remember rightly, the last occasion on which the late Sir Charles Lyell spoke to even so small a public as the members of that body.  Our veteran leader lighted up once more; and, referring to the difficulties which beset his early efforts to create a rational science of geology, spoke, with his wonted clearness and vigour, of the social ostracism which pursued him after the publication of the Principles of Geology, in 1830, on account of the obvious tendency of that noble work to discredit the Pentateuchal accounts of the Creation and the Deluge.  If my younger contemporaries find this hard to believe, I may refer them to a grave book On the Doctrine of the Deluge, published eight years later, and dedicated by the author to his father, the then Archbishop of York.  The first chapter refers to the treatment of the ‘Mosaic Deluge,’ by Dr. Buckland and Mr. Lyell, in the following terms:  ’Their respect for revealed religion has prevented them from arraying themselves openly against the Scriptural account of it—­much less do they deny its truth—­but they are in a great hurry to escape from the consideration of it, and evidently concur in the opinion of Linnaeus, that no proofs whatever of the Deluge are to be discovered in the structure of the earth.’  And after an attempt to reply to some of Lyell’s arguments, which it would be cruel to reproduce, the writer continues:—­’When, therefore, upon such slender grounds, it is determined, in answer to those who insist on its universality, that the Mosaic Deluge must be considered a preternatural event, far beyond the reach of philosophical enquiry; not only as to the causes employed to produce it, but as to the effects most likely to result from it; that determination wears an aspect of scepticism, which, however much soever it may be unintentional in the mind of the writer, yet cannot but produce an evil impression on those who are already predisposed to carp and cavil at the evidence of Revelation.’”

The great evil of authority was its tendency to erect itself into some form of infallibility of universal application.  When, for a time, the geological victory was won, and the supporters of authority had comforted themselves with reconciliations, there arose the much greater and more serious opposition between authority and the conceptions involved in evolution.  Huxley, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, found that all the old weapons of authority were resumed with a renewed assurance, and his advocacy of the duty of doubt became not merely the defence of a great principle but a means of self-defence.  The conception of infallible authority had been transferred by Protestants from the Church to the Bible, and against this Huxley strove with all his might.  It is convenient to reserve a full treatment of Huxley’s attitude to the Bible for a separate chapter, but at this point a quotation will shew his general view.