382 Darwin and Geology 



opinion of younger men, their enthusiasm for science, their freedom 

 from petty jealousies and their righteous indignation for what was 

 mean and unworthy in others. But yet there was a difference. Both 

 Lyell and Darwin were cautious, but perhaps Lyell carried his 

 caution to the verge of timidity. I think Darwin possessed, and 

 Lyell lacked, what I can only describe by the theological term, 

 " faith — the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 

 not seen." Both had been constrained to feel that the immutability 

 of species could not be maintained. Both, too, recognised the fact 

 that it would be useless to proclaim this conviction, unless prepared 

 with a satisfactory alternative to what Huxley called " the Miltonic 

 hypothesis." But Darwin's conviction was so far vital and operative 

 that it sustained him while working unceasingly for twenty-two 

 years in collecting evidence bearing on the question, till at last he 

 was in the position of being able to justify that conviction to others. 



And yet Lyell's attitude — and that of Hooker, which was very 

 similar — proved of inestimable service to science, as Darwin often 

 acknowledged. One of the greatest merits of the Origin of Species 

 is that so many difficulties and objections are anticipated and fairly 

 met; and this was to a great extent the result of the persistent 

 and very candid — if always friendly — criticism of Lyell and Hooker. 



I think the divergence of mental attitude in Lyell and Darwin 

 must be attributed to a difference in temperament, the evidence of 

 which sometimes appears in a very striking manner in their corre- 

 spondence. Thus in 1838, while they were in the thick of the fight 

 with the Catastrophists of the Geological Society, Lyell wrote 

 characteristically : " I really find, when bringing up my Preliminary 

 Essays in Principles to the science of the present day, so far as 

 I know it, that the great outline, and even most of the details, stand 

 so uninjured, and in many cases they are so much strengthened by 

 new discoveries, especially by yours, that we may begin to hope that 

 the great principles there insisted on will stand the test of new dis- 

 coveries 1 ." To which the more youthful and impetuous Darwin replies : 

 "Begin to hope : why the possibility of a doubt has never crossed 

 my mind for many a day. This may be very unphilosophical, but my 

 geological salvation is staked on it... it makes me quite indignant that 

 you should talk of hoping 2 ." 



It was not only Darwin's "geological salvation" that was at stake, 

 when he surrendered himself to his enthusiasm for an idea. To his 

 firm faith in the doctrine of continuity we owe the Origin of Species; 

 and while Darwin became the "Paul" of evolution, Lyell long re- 

 mained the "doubting Thomas." 



Many must have felt like H. C. Watson when he wrote: "How 



1 Lyell's Life, Letters and Journals, Vol. n. p. 44. 2 L. L. i. p. 296. 



