1 8 De Vi Physica 



be futile and systematically inconsequent to 

 deny catastrophe and creative fiat in the 

 inorganic, if they are to be retained in the 

 organic world. Or in other words : if the 

 ' rocks ' have been formed by accumulated 

 increment in vast periods of time, could not 

 plants and animals have been so too ? This 

 is Darwin's conclusion, and the genesis of his 

 * discovery ' of ' Natural Selection ' : which 

 is simply the further extension of the Lyel- 

 lian principle. * Natural Selection ' is no- 

 thing but Lyellian accumulation applied to 

 biology : the theory, that the organic parts 

 of plants and animals have originated, little 

 by little, by slight successive increments, or 

 variations, continuously added up by sur- 

 vival of the fittest, i.e., ' Natural Selection/ 

 Lyell accepted it, after an interval, just as 

 he welcomed Darwin's other ' discovery/ the 

 theory as to Coral Islands e , because it dove- 



e See Appendix. 



