CH. vm] THE COMING OF EVOLUTION 83 



truth of that doctrine was maintained must apply 

 also to the organic world. 



Hence we find that directly the Principles of 

 Geology was published, thinkers, like Sedgwick and 

 Whewell, at once taxed Lyell with holding that ' the 

 creation of new species is going on at the present 

 day,' and Lyell replied to the latter : 



* It was impossible, I think, for anyone to read my work and 

 not to perceive that my notion of uniformity in the existing causes 

 of change always implied that they must for ever produce an 

 endless variety of effects, both in the animate and inanimate 

 world.' 



And to Sedgwick, Lyell wrote : 



' Now touching my opinion,' concerning the creation of new 

 species at the present day, 'I have no right to object, 09 I really 

 entertain it, to your controverting it ; at the same time you will 

 see, on reading my chapter on the subject, that I have studiously 

 avoided laying down the doctrine dogmatically as capable of prool 

 I have admitted that we have only data for extinction, and I have 

 left it to be inferred, instead of enunciating it even as my opinion, 

 that the place of lost species is filled up (as it was of old) from 

 time to time by new species. I have only ventured to say that 

 had new mammalia come in, we could hardly have hoped to verify 

 the fact 81 .' 



That Lyell was convinced of the truth of the 

 doctrine of the evolution of species is shown by his 

 correspondence with friends and sympathisers like 

 Scrope and John Herschel. But he wrote : 



62 



