Vv. VARIETIES, ETC. 45 
contended for a few enormous efforts of destructive and re-creative 
power, as well in the organic as in the inorganic world. Sir 
Charles Lyell, with a curious inconsistency in so able a writer and 
reasoner, contended for the most gradual and ever-successive and 
still-continuous changes in the inorganic world, from past to 
present, by natural processes alone ;—yet also argued in favour of 
an absolute distinctness of species and their successive creations, 
not gradual evolution from those past to those present. 
The doctrine maintained by Lyell conduced greatly to the 
advance of correct views in geology ; but at the same time all the 
influence of his deservedly high repute was repeatedly given in 
support of views in biology, which Darwin and many others 
declare to be incorrect. The baneful effect of this influence could 
hardly be better exemplificd than by citing the instance of Dr. 
J.D. Hooker. ‘This illustrious Botanist appears to have been 
kept out of the light, in his earlier years, by the mere authority of 
Sir Charles Lyell ;—it could not have been so through the force 
or clearness of Lyell’s arguments. In ‘Flora Indica,’ vol. 1, 
page 20, Drs. Hooker and Thomson wrote in high eulogy of 
Sir Charles Lyell’s inconsistent views, rather too dogmatically 
designating as “ superficial naturalists” those who accepted “ the 
doctrine of the mutability of species.” Subsequently, it would 
now seem, both Sir Charles Lyell and Dr. J. D. Hooker have 
adopted the Darwinian doctrines; thus enlisting themselves into 
the ranks of the (so-called) “superficial naturalists,” and rapidly 
rising to generalship over them. But, might it not now be fairly 
retorted by any one satirically disposed, that the aforesaid de- 
signation has been fairly earned by both of them? Assuredly it 
was no great evidence of clearness or profundity, altogether to 
miss the right track until it was converted by Darwin into a 
broad highway, along which “ he that runs, may read.” 
True, the track then was indistinct in itself, and but dim in the 
early twilight. Before Darwin’s theory was formed and announced, 
all may justly be said to have failed in their attempts to show 
satisfactorily how the changes from past to present species could 
actually have been brought about. According to present appearance, 
