Reviews 



The Coming of Evolution: the Story of a Great Revolution. By 

 John W. Judd. London and Edinburgh: The Cambridge 

 University Press, 1910. Pp. 171. 



The numerous addresses which were delivered in various parts of 

 the world in connection with the recent Darwin Centenary seem to 

 have had for their common burden the revivification of all science by 

 the revolution which Darwin introduced in the biological field. Seldom 

 has it been pointed out, and never before in so convincing a manner, 

 that the acceptance of evolution for the organic world was a direct out- 

 growth of its demonstration in the field of geological science. It was 

 the publication by Sir Charles Lyell in 1830-33 of his Principles of 

 Geology, giving currency to continuity or uniformitarianism in the realm 

 of inorganic nature, that laid the foundations of modern geology and 

 paved the way for modern biology as well. Darwin was first a geologist, 

 and his great debt to Lyell he was ever ready to acknowledge. Says 

 Professor Judd: "Were I to assert that if the Principles of Geology had 

 not been written, we should never have had the Origin of Species, I 

 think I should not be going too far; at all events, I can safely assert, 

 from several conversations I had with Darwin, that he would have 

 most unhesitatingly agreed in that opinion." 



Huxley has given his verdict that "consistent uniformitarianism 

 postulates evolution as much in the organic as in the inorganic world." 

 In dedicating the second edition of his favorite work, the Narrative of 

 the Voyage of the Beagle, Darwin wrote: "To Charles Lyell, Esq., F.R.S., 

 this second edition is dedicated with grateful pleasure, as an acknowl- 

 edgment that the chief part of whatever scientific merit this journal 

 and the other works of the author may possess, has been derived from 

 studying the well-known admirable Principles of Geology." To Leonard 

 Horner he wrote: "I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell's 

 brain." In the Origin of Species Darwin refers to "Lyell's grand work 

 on the Principles of Geology, which the future historian will recognize 

 as having produced a revolution in Natural Science." 



The Coming of Evolution, first in the geological and later in the 

 biological field, has fortunately now been told by a veteran geologist 



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