Lyell 



and the Deluge 235 



Divine Will, and that the attempt to investigate them 

 was not only futile but blasphemous." As a particular 

 instance of this he cited some episodes in the history 

 of geological science. 



" At the present time, it is difficult to persuade serious scieu- 

 tific enquirers to occupy themselves, in any way, with the 

 Noachian Deluge. They look at you with a smile and a shrug, 

 and say they have more important matters to attend to than 

 mere antiquariauism. But it was not so in my youth. At 

 that time geologists and biologists could hardly follow to the 

 end any path of enquiry without finding the way blocked by 

 Noah and his ark, or by the first chapter of Genesis ; and it 

 was a serious matter, in this country at any rate, for a man to 

 be suspected of doubting the literal truth of the Diluvial or any 

 other Pentateuchal history. The fiftieth anniversary of the 

 foundation of the Geological Club (in 1824) was, if I remember 

 rightly, the last occasion on which the late Sir Charles Ivvell 

 spoke to even so small a public as the members of that body. 

 Our veteran leader lighted up once more ; and, referring to 

 the difficulties which beset his early efforts to create a rational 

 science of geology, spoke, with his wonted clearness and vig- 

 our, of the social ostracism which pursued him after the public- 

 ation of the Principles of Geology, in 1830, on account of the 

 obvious tendency of that noble work to discredit the Penta- 

 teuchal accounts of the Creation and the Deluge. If my 

 younger contemporaries find this hard to believe, I may refer 

 them to a grave book On the Doctrine of the Deluge, pub- 

 lished eight years later, and dedicated by the author to his 

 father, the then Archbishop of York. The first chapter refers 

 to the treatment of the 'Mosaic Deluge,' by Dr. Buckland 

 and Mr. Lyell, in the following terms : ' Their respect for re- 

 vealed religion has prevented them from arraying themselves 

 openly against the Scriptural account of it — much less do they 

 deny its truth — but they are in a great hurry to escape from 

 the consideration of it, and evidently concur in the opinion of 

 Linnaeus, that no proofs whatever of the Deluge are to be dis- 

 covered in the structure of the earth.' And after an attempt to 

 reply to some of Lyell's arguments, which it would be cruel to 



