Claypole on Darwin and Geology. 155 
The echoes of this acrimonious controversy had not died 
away when Darwin went to Edinburgh. But a temporary cahn 
was then 2:)revaiUng, due to the suppi"ession of the heretical 
Vulcanists by the strong arm of pubhc opinion. Their total 
and final suppression was, however, impossible because truth 
was on their side. The result was of course to take the life out 
of geological teaching and interest out of geological study. No 
power can permanently galvanize into the semblance of life 
that which is surely and finally dead. Without therefore at- 
tributing to young Darwin any other virtue in this respect 
^ which he did not apparently possess) than the power of seeing 
when the e^'idence supported the teaching, we are not surprised 
to read (p. 36) : 
"I attended 's lectures on geology, but they were incred- 
ibly dull. The sole effect they produced on me was the deter- 
mination never, so long as I lived, to read a book on geology, 
or in any way to study the science. Yet I feel sure that I was 
prepared for a philosophical treatment of the subject." What 
kind of teaching he "enjoyed" may be gathered from the fol- 
lowing sentence: "It is the fact that I, though now only sixty- 
seven years old, heard the professor in a field lecture at Salisbur_v 
Craigs, discoursing on a trap rock with amygdaloidal margins 
and the strata indurated on each side, and with volcanic rocks 
all around vis, say that it was a fissure filled from above, adding 
with a sneer, that there were men who maintained that it had 
been injected from beneath in a molten condition. When I 
think of this lecture I do not wonder that I determined never 
again to attend to geology." 
The biographer has judiciously concealed the name of the 
professor, but those who are familiar with Edinburgh of that 
<lay will find no difiicvdty in filling the blank if they recall a 
well known teacher of a theory even then well nigh antiquated. 
Times have changed, and now from the same chair are 
heard the once denounced doctrines of Hutton and Playfair, 
while the peculiar tenet of Werner has sunk into well deserved 
oblivion. 
The dislike to geolog}' aroused at Edinburgh prevented, so 
he says, his attending the eloquent and interesting lectures of 
Sedgwick at Cambridge. But he was strongh' attracted b\- 
