1858-64-] CHARLES LYELL. 119 



At the same time, I told Wallace that I thought his 

 arguments as to the hand, the voice, the beauty and 

 the symmetry, the naked skin, and other attributes of 

 man, implying a preparation for his subsequent devel- 

 opment, might easily be controverted " (" Charles Lyell," 

 Vol. II., p. 442). 



Lyell is the only Darwinian who has made any refer- 

 ence to " spontaneous generation." It is in a letter to 

 Charles Darwin, dated March 15, 1863 (" Charles Lyell," 

 Vol. II., p. 346). Curiously enough, he calls Richard 

 Owen " a disciple of Pouchet" of Rouen. Darwin and 

 Huxley have gone as far as it was possible for them to go, 

 in reducing the initiative beings on earth to four or five 

 cells, even to a single one, according to Darwin's most 

 intimate thought. From that cell to spontaneous gener- 

 ation there was an easy passage, especially for materi- 

 alists and agnostics. But the very exact and splendid 

 experiments of Louis Pasteur, proving beyond discussion 

 that " spontaneous generation " does not exist, broke 

 the first link of their chain of reasoning for the " Origin 

 of Species," and they all by common consent passed 

 over it as too dangerous ground. 



Gray's slight knowledge of geology, palaeontology, 

 and zoology led him to overestimate the value of both 

 Lyell and Darwin, when he says, " It is interesting to 

 see how early he [Lyell] took to the line which he fol- 

 lowed in his whole life's work, and which has changed 

 the face of geology and philosophical natural history. 

 For, indeed, Lyell is as much the father of the new 

 mode of thought which now prevails as Darwin" (Letter 

 of Gray to A. de Candolle in " Letters of Asa Gray," 



