v] OF EVOLUTION 53 



evident, if gentle, note of sarcasm running through 

 them : 



* Hutton for the purpose of getting his continents above water, 

 or manufacturing a chain of Alps or Andes, did not disdain to call 

 in something more than common volcanic eruptions which we read 

 of in newspapers from time to time. He was content to have 

 a period of paroxysmal action an extraordinary convulsion in 

 the bowels of the earth an epoch of general destruction and 

 violence, to usher in one of restoration and life. Mr Lyell throws 

 away all such crutches, he walks alone in the path of his specula- 

 tions ; he requires no paroxysms, no extraordinary periods ; he is 

 content to take burning mountains as he finds them ; and, with 

 the assistance of the stock of volcanoes and earthquakes now on 

 hand, he undertakes to transform the earth from any one of its 

 geological conditions to any other. He requires time, no doubt ; 

 he must not be hurried in his proceedings. But, if we will allow 

 him a free stage in the wide circuit of eternity, he will ask no 

 other favour; he will fight his undaunted way through forma- 

 tions, transition and flotz through oceanic and lacustrine 

 deposits; and does not despair of carrying us triumphantly 

 from the dark and venerable schist of Skiddaw, to the alter- 

 nating tertiaries of the Isle of Wight, or even to the more recent 

 shell-beds of the Sicilian coasts, whose antiquity is but, as it were, 

 of yester-myriad of years 41 .' 



Never, surely, did words written in a tone of 

 banter constitute such real and effective praise ! 



But though it is certain that Lyell did not derive 

 his evolutionary views from Hutton, yet when he 

 came to write his historical introduction to the 

 Principles, he was greatly impressed by the proofs 



