PRESENT STATUS OF THE QUESTION 11 



jective channels. The Linnsean doctrine of the 

 fixity and immutability of species held the field so 

 exclusively for the next half century, that Darwin 

 tells us that he had never met and conversed with 

 any naturalist who did not hold such a belief. 



The way for the great revolution effected by Dar- 

 win was prepared indirectly and in a science which 

 seemed to be very remote from the field of contro- 

 versy, viz., Geology, and the pioneer who opened this 

 new road was Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875)'. Before 

 Lyell began his great work, the interpretation of the 

 earth's history was under the sway of Cuvier's theory 

 of "Catastrophism." According to this theory, the 

 history of the earth consisted of long periods of 

 tranquil geographical development, interrupted at 

 intervals by utterly indescribable and unimaginable 

 cataclysms, when elemental forces were unchained, 

 devastating the earth, breaking up and displacing 

 the rocks and destroying every living thing; of these 

 periods of destruction, d'Orbigny enumerated 27. 

 When tranquillity was restored, renewed acts of crea- 

 tion supplied animals and plants for the depopulated 

 earth and thus, as it were, the curtain rose upon a 

 new scene, with a new set of actors, the old having 

 been completely swept away. It was observed that 

 each fresh creation produced animals and plants of 

 a higher type, successively approximating the present 

 order of things. Cuvier was too cautious and too 

 critical to declare dogmatically that there had ac- 

 tually been many successive acts of creation and he 



