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Lye II 281 



am conscious that many names which I have omitted might 

 fitly have found a place in my list. But there are still 

 two which I must not pass over, and with these I shall 

 conclude. They are Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin- 

 two illustrious men who were linked together in their lives 

 by many ties of sympathy, and whom it is a gratification 

 to place side by side on the bede-roll of geological fame. 



Charles Lyell (1'79'7-1875) exercised a profound influ- 

 ence on the geology of his time in all English-speaking 

 countries. Adopting the principles of the Huttonian 

 theory, he developed them until the original enunciator 

 of them was nearly lost sight of. Lyell, with unwearied 

 industry, marshalled in admirable order all the observa- 

 tions that he could collect in support of the doctrine that 

 the present is the key to the past. With inimitable 

 lucidity, he traced the operation of existing causes, and 

 held them up as the measure of those which have acted 

 in bygone time. He carried Button's doctrine to its 

 logical conclusion, for not only did he refuse to allow the 

 introduction of any process which could not be shown to 

 be a part of the present system of nature, he would not 

 even admit that there was any reason to suppose the 

 degree of activity of the geological agents to have ever 

 seriously differed from what it has been within human 

 experience. He became the great high priest of Uni- 

 formitarianism a creed which grew to be almost uni- 

 versal in England during his life, but which never made 

 much way in the rest of Europe, and which in its extreme 

 form is probably now held by few geologists in any country. 

 Ly ell's Principles of Geology will, however, always rank as 

 one of the classics of geology, and must form an early part 



