192 ON THE RECEPTION OF 



to be understood that he had not replied, on the ground of his 

 general objection to controversy. 



Lyell's contemporaries were not without some inkling of 

 his esoteric doctrine. Whewell's ' History of the Inductive 

 Sciences,' whatever its philosophical value, is always worth 

 reading and always interesting, if under no other aspect than 

 that of an evidence of the speculative limits within which a 

 highly-placed divine might, at that time, safely range at 

 will. In the course of his discussion of uniformitarianism, the 

 encyclopaedic Master of Trinity observes : 



" Mr. Lyell, indeed, has spoken of an hypothesis that ' the 

 successive creation of species may constitute a regular part of 

 the economy of nature,' but he has nowhere, I think, so 

 described this process as to make it appear in what depart- 

 ment of science we are to place the hypothesis. Are these 

 new species created by the production, at long intervals, of 

 an offspring different in species from the parents ? Or are 

 the species so created produced without parents ? Are they 

 gradually evolved from some embryo substance ? Or do they 

 suddenly start from the ground, as in the creation of the 

 poet? . . . 



" Some selection of one of these forms of the hypothesis, 

 rather than the others, with evidence for the selection, is 

 requisite to entitle us to place it among the known causes of 

 change, which in this chapter we are considering. The bare 

 conviction that a creation of species has taken place, whether 

 once or many times, so long as it is unconnected with our 

 organical sciences, is a tenet of Natural Theology rather 

 than of Physical Philosophy." * 



The earlier part of this criticism appears perfectly just and 

 appropriate ; but, from the concluding paragraph, Whewell 

 evidently imagines that by " creation " Lyell means a preter- 

 natural intervention of the Deity ; whereas the letter to 

 Herschel shows that, in his own mind, Lyell meant natural 



* Whewell's ' History/ vol. iii. p. 639-640 (ed. 2, 1847). 



