iv] OF EVOLUTION 23 



Some authors have suggested that the doctrine 

 taught by Generelli, Desmarest and Hutton, and later 

 by Scrope and Lyell, for which Whewell proposed the 

 somewhat cumbrous term ' Uniformitarianism,' but 

 which was perhaps better designated by Grove in 

 1866 as ' Continuity 14 ,' was distinct from, and sub- 

 sidiary to, Evolution and this view could claim for a 

 time the support of a very great authority. 



In 1869, Huxley delivered an address to the 

 Geological Society, in which he postulated the exis- 

 tence of ' three more or less contradictory systems of 

 geological thought,' under the names of 'Catastro- 

 phism,' * Uniformitarianism ' and ' Evolution.' In 

 this essay, distinguished by all his wonderful lucidity 

 and forceful logic, Huxley sought to establish the 

 position that evolution is a doctrine, distinct from and 

 in advance of that of Uniformitarianism, and that 

 Hutton and Playfair ' and to a less extent Lyell ' 

 had acted unwisely in deprecating the extension of 

 Geology into enquiries concerning ' the beginning of 

 things 15 .' 



But there is no doubt that Huxley at a later 

 period was led to qualify, and indeed to largely modify, 

 the views maintained in that address. In a foot- 

 note to an essay written in April 1887, he asserts 

 'What I mean by "evolutionism" is consistent and 

 thoroughgoing Uniformitarianism'; and in the same 

 year he wrote in his Reception of the Origin of 



