No. 1.] NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 15 



and spiritual nature. There is nothing in the study of nature 

 to withdraw a man from sympathy with his fellows ; and men of 

 science who have so shut themselves up in their specialties as to 

 take no interest in the general welfare and progress of society, 

 have necessarily failed to secure for themselves and their subjects 

 the hearty interest of mankind. In these respects, Lyell was 

 characterized by the same breadth which appears in his scientific 

 investigations and reasonings. He was a warm personal friend, 

 and full of sincere sympathy with all that concerned those he 

 loved. He was active and earnest in promoting education and 

 the diffusion of knowledge, and he took a lively interest in all 

 movements for improving the social and political condition of 

 mankind. He was quite free from that tendency to attack or 

 sneer at everything that other men hold sacred, which charac- 

 terizes some of the advanced writers of the day. He neither 

 tormented himself with the gloomy idea that men looked askance 

 upon him and desired to persecute him, nor did he desire to 

 make any other man a martyr to his faith. In the earlier 

 editions of the Principles, he closed the work with a few para- 

 graphs of " Concluding Remarks," in which he repelled the 

 imputation that his doctrine of modern causes was equivalent 

 to the assumption that " there never was a beginning of the 

 present order of things;" and he takes occasion to state his 

 doctrine of the relation of natural science to religion in the 

 following words, which, I find, remain unchanged in the last 

 edition : — 



" We aspire in vain to assign limits to the works of creation 

 in space, whether we examine the starry heavens or that world 

 of minute animalcules which is revealed to us by the microscope, 

 we are prepared therefore to find that in time also the confines 

 of the universe lie beyond the reach of mortal man. But in 

 whatever directiou we pursue our researches, whether in time or 

 space, we discover everywhere the clear proofs of a Creative 

 Intelligence, and of his foresight, wisdom and power. As 

 geologists, we learn that it is not merely the present condition 

 of the globe which is suited to the accommodation of myriads of 

 living creatures, but that many former states also were adapted 

 to the organization and habits of prior races of being. The dis- 

 position of the seas, continents and islands, and the climates 

 have varied ; the species likewise have been changed, and yet 

 they have all been so modelled on types analogous to those of 

 Vol. VIII. b No. 1. 



