NOTES to pp. 13 and 34.
It has been kindly pointed out to me by Mr. James Parker of Oxford that there is an error in Mr. Darwin’s calculation reproduced in page 13 of this volume. Upon the data supplied, the increase in the number of elephants there mentioned would require 750 years instead of 500. The further increase calculated in the same page, would in like manner require seven or eight additional centuries instead of five.
Mr. Parker also suggests that the expressions in page 34, ‘taken for granted,’ ‘taught for centuries,’ seem to ignore Bishop Stillingfleet and other writers of his time, who saw good reason for believing the Flood in the days of Noah not to have been universal. I am glad to explain that I did not by any means intend to imply that there were no exceptions to the general state of opinion, for I am well aware that there are at the present day some schools, a few nurseries, and even one or two pulpits, into which the truth on this point has been allowed to penetrate.