146 
“T devoured Lamarck ex voyage, as you did Sismondi, 
and with equal pleasure. His theories delighted me more 
than any novel I ever read, and much in the same way, 
for they address themselves to the imagination, at least of 
geologists who know the mighty inferences which would 
be deducible were they established by observations. But 
though I admire even his flights, and feel none of the 
odium theologicum which some modern writers in this 
country have visited him with, I confess I read him 
rather as I hear an advocate on the wrong side, to know 
what can be made of the case in good hands. I am glad 
that he has been courageous enough and logical enough 
to admit that his argument, if pushed as far as it must 
go, if worth anything, would prove that man may have 
come from the Ourang-Outang. But after all, what 
changes species may really undergo! How impossible 
will it be to distinguish and lay down a line, beyond 
which some of the so-called extinct species have never 
passed into recent ones. That the earth is quite as old 
as he supposes, has long been my creed, and I will try 
before six months are over to convert the readers of the 
Quarterly to that heterodox opinion” (vol. i. p. 168). 
His aspirations concerning his future at that time will 
be understood from the following extract from a letter 
Written to his father in the same year :— 
“T find my wants diminish monthly in proportion as I 
am more agreeably employed, and if with the willingness 
to work and industry which I now have, I had any chance 
of earning what I require by my own exertions, I should 
be without a care as far as I am myself concerned. But to 
be willing without avail to work hard, and almost for 
nothing, is now the fate of many hundreds of barristers, 
and many millions of our labouring classes, and we must 
congratulate ourselves at not being among the latter. I 
am quite clear, from all that I have yet seen of the world, 
that there is most real independence in that class of 
society who, possessing moderate means, are engaged in 
literary and scientific hobbies; and that in ascending 
from them upwards, the feeling of independence decreases 
pretty nearly in the same ratio as the fortunes increase. 
My eyes go on tolerably, and I feel my facility of com- 
position increases, and hope to make friends among those 
that a literary reputation will procure me who may assist 
me’”’ (vol. i. p. 171). 
Under date of February 5, 1828, he wrote to Dr. 
Mantell explaining his plans for the work which he had 
been for some time contemplating :— 
“T at first intended to write ‘Conversations on Geo- 
logy’’; it is what no doubt the booksellers, and there- 
fore the greatest number of readers, are desirous of. My 
reason for abandoning this form was simply this; that I 
found I should not do it at all, without taking more pains 
than such a form would do justice to. Besides, I felt that 
in a subject where so much is to be reformed and struck 
out anew, and where one obtains new ideas and theories 
in the progress of one’s task, where you have to controvert, 
and to invent an argumentation—work is required, and 
one like the ‘Conversations on Chemistry’ and others 
would not do. It should hardly be between the teacher 
and the scholar perhaps, but a dialogue like Berkeley's 
Alciphron, between equals. But finally I thought that 
when I had made up my own mind and opinions in pro- 
ducing another kifd of book, I might then construct con- 
versations from it. In the meantime there is a cry 
among the publishers for an elementary work, and I 
much wish you would supply it. Anything from you 
would be useful, for what they have now is positively bad, 
for such is Jamieson’s ‘Cuvier’” (vol. i. p. 177). 
In attempting to free geological science from the 
trammels with which it had become involved by the 
efforts of well-intentioned but mischievous works, like the 
NATURE 
| Dec. 15, 1881 - 
“Vindiciae Geologica” and the “ Reliquize Diluvianz,” 
Lyell undertook no light or easy task. His letters to 
Scrope, who had been requested by Lockhart to review 
the “Principles” in the pages of the Quarterly, show 
very clearly how sensible Lyell was of the difficulties 
by which he was beset through the nervous susceptibilities 
of orthodoxy. The fact that the works of Hutton and 
Playfair had long ago been placed in a social ‘ Index 
Expurgatorius,” and that Scrope’s clear and admirable 
exposition of the Huttonian doctrines, published in his 
“Considerations on Volcanoes” in 1825, had altogether 
failed to revive interest in the ostracised works, was full 
of warning to Lyell. We find him writing to Scrope, 
while the first volume of the “Principles” was going 
through the press, in the following terms :— 
“T was afraid to point the moral, as much as you can 
do in the Q. &., about Moses. Perhaps I should have 
been tenderer about the Koran. Don’t meddle much 
with that, if at all. 
“If we don’t irritate, which I fear that we may (though 
mere history), we shall carry all with us. If you don’t 
triumph over them, but compliment the liberality and 
candour of the present age, the bishops and enlightened 
‘saints will join us in despising both the ancient and 
modern physico-theologians, It is just the time to strike, 
so rejoice that, sinner as you are, the Q. &. is open 
to you. 
“Tf I have said more than some will like, yet I give 
you my word that full A4a/f of my history and comments 
was cut out, and even many facts; because either I, or 
Stokes, or Broderip felt that it was anticipating twenty or 
thirty years of the march of honest feeling to declare it 
undisguisedly. Nor did I dare come down to modem 
offenders. They themselves will be ashamed of seeing 
how they will look by-and-by in the pages of history, if 
they ever get into it, which I doubt. You see that what 
between Steno, Hooke, Woodward, De Luc, and others, 
the modern deluge systems are all borrowed. Point out 
to the general reader that my floods, earthquakes, &c., 
are all very modern, also waste of cliffs; and that I 
request that people will multiply, by whatever time they 
think man has been on the earth, the sum of this modern 
observed change, and not form an opinion from what 
history has recorded. Fifty years from this, they will 
furnish facts for a better volume than mine. . . .” 
“T conceived the idea five or six years ago, that if ever 
the Mosaic geology could be set down without giving 
offence, it would be in an historical sketch, and you must 
abstract mine, in order to have as little to say as possible 
yourself. Let them feel it, and point the moral” (vol. i. 
Dez 7l)s 
On two points, as has often been pointed out, Lyell 
may be held to have betrayed weakness in his reasoning 
in the “Principles.” The first of these was that he 
appeared to accept in the most uncompromising manner 
the stringent Uniformitarian views of Hutton, leaving no 
place even for variations in the intensity of causes now 
operating. In taking this line he was doubtless influenced 
by fear of making any dangerous concessions to his ad- 
versaries the “ Diluvialists.” His real feelings on the 
subject may be gathered from a letter in which he replies 
to the remonstrances of Scrope upon the subject— 
“All I ask is, that at any given period of the past don’t 
stop inquiry when puzzled by refuge to a ‘beginning,’ 
which is all one with ‘another state of nature’ as it appears 
tome. But there is no harm in your attacking me, pro- 
‘vided you point out that it is the proof I deny, not the 
probability of a beginning. Mark, too, my argument, 
