210 GEOLOGICAL TIME 



history, and even when they emphatically dissent from 

 the greatly restricted bounds within which he would 

 now limit that history, and when they declare their 

 inability to perceive that any further reform of their 

 speculations in this subject is needful, or that their 

 science has placed herself in opposition to the principles 

 of physics, they none the less pay their sincere homage 

 to one who has thrown over geology, as over so many 

 other departments of natural knowledge, the clear 

 light of a penetrating and original genius. 



When Lord Kelvin first developed his strictures 

 on modern geology he expressed his opposition in 

 the most uncompromising language. In the short 

 paper to which reference has already been made he 

 announced, without hesitation or palliation, that he 

 * briefly refuted ' the doctrine of Uniformitarianism 

 which had been espoused and illustrated by Lyell and 

 a long list of the ablest geologists of the day. The 

 severity of his judgment of British geology was not 

 more marked than was his unqualified reliance on his 

 own methods and results. This confident assurance 

 of a distinguished physicist, together with a formidable 

 array of mathematical formulae, produced its effect 

 on some geologists and palaeontologists who were not 

 Gallios. Thus, even after Huxley's brilliant defence, 

 Darwin could not conceal the deep impression which 

 Lord Kelvin's arguments had made on his mind. In 

 one letter he wrote that the proposed limitation of 

 geological time was one of his ' sorest troubles/ In 

 another, he pronounced the physicist himself to be 

 ' an odious spectre.' l 



1 Darwin's Life and Letters, vol. iii. pp. 115, 146. 



