338 Darwin and Geology 



It is the first of these inquiries which specially interests the 

 geologist ; though geology undoubtedly played a part and by no 

 means an insignificant part in respect to the second inquiry. 



When, indeed, the history comes to be written of that great 

 revolution of thought in the nineteenth century, by which the 

 doctrine of evolution, from being the dream of poets and visionaries, 

 gradually grew to be the accepted creed of naturalists, the para- 

 mount influence exerted by the infant science of geology and 

 especially that resulting from the publication of Lyell's epoch- 

 making work, the Principles of Geology cannot fail to be regarded 

 as one of the leading factors. Herbert Spencer in his Autobiography 

 bears testimony to the effect produced on his mind by the recently 

 published Principles, when, at the age of twenty, he had already 

 begun to speculate on the subject of evolution 1 ; and Alfred Russel 

 Wallace is scarcely less emphatic concerning the part played by 

 Lyell's teaching in his scientific education 2 . Huxley wrote in 1887 

 " I owe more than I can tell to the careful study of the Principles of 

 Geology in my young days 3 ." As for Charles Darwin, he never 

 tired either in his published writings, his private correspondence 

 or his most intimate conversations of ascribing the awakening of 

 his enthusiasm and the direction of his energies towards the 

 elucidation of the problem of development to the Principles of 

 Geology and the personal influence of its author. Huxley has well 

 expressed what the author of the Origin of Species so constantly 

 insisted upon, in the statements "Darwin's greatest work is the 

 outcome of the unflinching application to Biology of the leading 

 idea and the method applied in the Principles to Geology 4 ," and 

 "Lyell, for others, as for myself, was the chief agent in smoothing 

 the road for Darwin 5 ." 



We propose therefore to consider, first, what Darwin owed to 

 geology and its cultivators, and in the second place how he was able 

 in the end so fully to pay a great debt which he never failed to 

 acknowledge. Thanks to the invaluable materials contained in the 

 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (3 vols.) published by Mr Francis 

 Darwin in 1887 ; and to More Letters of Charles Darwin (2 vols.) 

 issued by the same author, in conjunction with Professor A. C. 

 Seward, in 1903, we are permitted to follow the various movements 



1 Herbert Spencer's Autobiography, London, 1904, Vol. i. pp. 175 177. 



2 See My Life ; a record of Events and Opinions, London, 1905, Vol. i. p. 355, etc. 

 Also his review of Lyell's Principles in Quarterly Review (Vol. 126), 1869, pp. 359 394. 

 See also The Darwin-Wallace Celebration by the Linnean Society (1909), p. 118. 



8 " Science and Pseudo Science;" Collected Essays, London, 1902, Vol. v. p. 101. 



4 Proc. Roy. Soc. Vol. XLIV. (1888), p. viii. ; Collected Essays, n. p. 268, 1902. 



5 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, n. p. 190. 



