Ch. IX.] 1831—1844. 167 



Darwin, was in fact an anticipator of Lamarck, and not of 

 Charles Darwin ; there is no trace in his works of the concep- 

 tion by the addition of which his grandson metamorphosed the 

 theory of evolution as applied to living things, and gave it a 

 new foundation." 



On the whole it seems to mo that the effect on his mind 

 of the earlier evolutionists was inappreciable, and as far as 

 concerns the history of the Origin of the Species, it is of no 

 particular importance, because, as before said, evolution mado 

 no progress in his mind until the cause of modification was 

 conceivable. 



I think Mr. Huxley is right in saying * that " it is hardly 

 too much to say that Darwin's greatest work is the outcome oi 

 the unflinching application to biology of the leading idea, and 

 the method applied in the Principles to Geology." Mr. Huxley 

 has elsewhere t admirably expressed the bearing of Lyell's 

 work in this connection : — 



" I cannot but believe that Lyell, for others, as for myself, 

 was the chief agent in smoothing the road for Darwin. For 

 consistent uniformitarianism postulates evolution as much in 

 the organic as in the inorganic world. The origin of a new 

 species by other than ordinary agencies would be a vastly 

 greater * catastrophe ' than any of those which Lyell success- 

 fully eliminated from sober geological speculation. . . . 



" Lyell, J with perfect right, claims this position for himself. 

 He speaks of having ' advocated a law of continuity even in 

 the organic world, so far as possible without adopting Lamarck's 

 theory of transmutation. . . . 



" ■ But while I taught,' Lyell goes on, * that as often as 

 certain forms of animals and plants disappeared, for reasons 

 quite intelligible to us, others took their place by virtue of 

 a causation which was beyond our comprehension ; it remained 

 for Darwin to accumulate proof that there is no break between 

 the incoming and the outgoing species, that they are the work 

 of evolution, and not of special creation. ... I had certainly 

 prepared the way in this country, in six editions of my work 

 before the Vestiges of Creation appeared in 1842 [1844], for the 

 reception of Darwin's gradual and insensible evolution of 

 species.' " 



* Obituary Notice, p. viii. 



t Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 190. In Mr. Huxley's chapter the passage 

 beginning " Lyell with perfect right . . . ." is given as a footnote : it 

 will be seen that I have incorporated it with Mr. Huxley'B text. 



% Lyell's Life and Letters, Letter to Haeckel, vol. ii. p. 436. Nov. 23, 

 1868. 



