180 EMINENT NATURALISTS. 



opportunities of seeing Sir Charles Lyell in his latter 

 years, thus records her impressions: — 



" The last of the elder generation of our great 

 men of science, Sir Charles Lyell leaves behind him 

 the memory of a character almost ideally representing 

 what such men should be ; so free from egotism, 

 vanity, or jealousy ; so ready to be pleased with every 

 innocent jest or amusement ; so ready to listen 

 patiently to the remarks of those infinitely below 

 his mental calibre ; and withal so affectionate and 

 tender of heart, that no child could be more simple : 

 and, on the other hand, so filled with reverent 

 enthusiasm for the glory and grandeur of the universe, 

 to whose study he devoted himself ; and so ready to 

 open his mind to each new truth, that no man could 

 better deserve the title of a true philosopher. Nor did 

 his philosophy, though it released him from some of 

 the bonds of early prejudice, ever lead him to renounce 

 those highest truths to which the lesser ones of science 

 lead up. It was his frequent observation that religious 

 sentiment deserved as much confidence as any other 

 faculty of our nature ; and in full faith and hope in 

 (rod and immortality, he passed calmly into the dark 

 valley of age and death." 



To summarize the life and labours of Sir Charles 

 Lyell in their relationship to the science of geology 

 would be much the same thing as sketching the develop- 

 ment of the modern British school of the same science 

 during more than the past half century. The task 

 to which he devoted his greatest powers and noblest 

 energies was that of establishing the principles of the 



