126 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
enlarged, and improved edition of the organic population had 
appeared. Although the number of these editions of creation 
was altogether problematical, and in truth could not be fixed 
at all, and although the numerous advances which, during 
this time, were made in all the departments of zoology and 
botany demonstrated more and more that Cuvier’s hypo- 
thesis was unfounded and untenable, and that Lamarck’s 
natural theory of development was nearer the truth, yet the 
former maintained its authority almost universally among 
biologists. This must, above all, be ascribed to the venera- 
tion which Cuvier had acquired, and strikingly illustrates 
how injurious to the progress of humanity a faith in 
any definite authority may become. Authority, as Goethe 
once admirably said, perpetuates the individual, which 
as an individual should pass away, rejects and allows to 
pass that which should be held fast, and is the main 
obstacle to the advance of humanity. 
It is only by having regard to the great weight of Cuvier’s 
authority, and to the mighty potency of human indolence, 
which is with difficulty induced to depart from the broad 
and comfortable way of everyday conceptions, and to enter 
upon new paths not yet made easy, that we can comprehend 
how it is that Lamarck’s Theory of Descent did not gain its 
due recognition until 1859, after Darwin had given it a new 
foundation. The soil had long been prepared for it by the 
-works of Charles Lyell, another English naturalist, whose 
views are of great importance for the natural history of 
creation, and must accordingly here be briefly explained. 
In 1830 Charles Lyell published, under the title of 
“Principles of Geology,” a work in which he thoroughly 
reformed the science of Geology and the history of the earth’s 
