1859 THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES* 243 



But, by a curious irony of fate, the same influence 

 which led me to put as little faith in modern speculations 

 on this subject as in the venerable traditions recorded in 

 the first two chapters of Genesis, was perhaps more 

 potent than any other in keeping alive a sort of pious 

 conviction that Evolution, after all, would turn out true. 

 I have recently read afresh the first edition of the 

 Principles of Geology; and when I consider that this 

 remarkable book had been nearly thirty years in every- 

 body's hands, and that it brings home to any reader of 

 ordinary intelligence a great principle and a great fact, 

 the principle that the past must be explained by the 

 present, unless good cause be shown to the contrary ; and 

 the fact that so far as our knowledge of the past history 

 of life on our globe goes, no such cause can be shown, 

 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 



consistency and clearness are shown to belong as little to "our 

 Vestigiarian himself" as to "any of the other nebulae." 



The Review is further noteworthy (1) for its criticism, to be 

 reviewed more than thirty years later (see vol. iii. p. 11), in the cam- 

 paign against pseudo-science, of the "belief that a natural law is 

 an entity " instead of " nothing but the epitome of the observed 

 history of the phenomena of the universe " ; while on the other 

 hand "to assert that the Creator, from whom these phenomena 

 proceeded, worked in the manner of natural law, and that, there- 

 fore, there is no scope for wonder, is as if one should say that in 

 ancient Greece he worked in the manner of Grote's History, and 

 that, therefore, there is nothing remarkable in Greek civilisation." 



It is noteworthy (2) for a strong attack on the "progressive" 

 theory of development, and shows that in face of geological and 

 biological evidence, it is untenable [cp. p. 247], and (3) for an ironical 

 rebuke to the author's open ascription to Owen of the authorship, 

 already attributed to him, of a Quarterly article of course 

 unsigned which not only ran counter to the views expressed in 

 his published works, but made an unjust attack on his nearest 

 colleague. (See p. 136, supra.) 



