544 



ON THE RECEPTION OF 



the chief agent for smoothing the road for Darwin, For con- 

 sistent uniformitarianism postulates evolution as much in the 

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

 cies by other than ordinary agencies would be a vastly 

 greater " catastrophe " than any of those which Lyell suc- 

 cessfully eliminated from sober geological speculation. 



In fact, no one was better aware of this than Lyell him- 

 self.* If one reads any of the earlier editions of the ' Prin- 

 ciples ' carefully (especially by the light of the interesting 

 series of letters recently published by Sir Charles Lyell's 

 biographer), it is easy to see that, with all his energetic oppo- 

 sition to Lamarck, on the one hand, and to the ideal quasi- 

 progressionism of Agassiz, on the other, Lyell, in his own 

 mind, was strongly disposed to account for the origination of 

 all past and present species of living things by natural causes. 

 But he would have liked, at the same time, to keep the name 

 of creation for a natural process which he imagined to be in- 

 comprehensible. 



In a letter addressed to Mantell (dated March 2, 1827), 

 Lyell speaks of having just read Lamarck ; he expresses his 

 delight at Lamarck's theories, and his personal freedom from 

 any objection based on theological grounds. And though he 

 is evidently alarmed at the pithecoid origin of man involved 

 in Lamarck's doctrine, he observes : — 



* Lyell, 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 transmuta- 

 tion." . . . 



" But while I taught 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 evolu- 

 tion, 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." — 

 ' Life and Letters,' Letter to Haeckel, vol. ii. p. 436. Nov. 23, 1868. 



