Claypole on 'Darw'ni and Geology. 157 
The following remarks of Darwin on Carlyle in this con- 
nection are amusing, keen, and most will admit true. "It is 
astonishing to me that Kingslcy -should have spoken of him as 
a man well fitted to advance science. He laughed to scorn the 
idea that a mathematician, such as Whewell, could judge, as 
I maintained he could, of Gothe's view^s on light. He thou^j-ht 
jt a most ridiculous thing that any one should care whether a 
glacier moved a little quicker or slower, or moved at all. As 
far as I can judge I never met a man with a mind so ill adapted 
for scientific research." — p. 64. 
There has come in the life j^rohabl}' of everv great man a 
turiiing-25oint, marked by some perhaps insignificant circum- 
stance, which was the means of directing his thought and energy 
irito the channel in wdiich they afterw'ard remained. So it was 
with Darwin. It was in the year 1S31 when he was twenty- 
two 3'ears of age that two events occurred almost simultaneouslv 
that tended to confirm him in his devotion to science, and at 
the same time to attract him very powerfullv to biology, and 
geology. These were, his appointment as naturalist on the 
"Beagle" during her voyage of discovery, and the publication 
of Lyell's "Princiioles of Geology," a copy of which he bought 
at the suggestion of his friend Henslow, who however cautioned 
him "on no account to adopt the views therein advocated," 
To realize the significance of these words we must recall the 
state of geology in 1831. Tte theological fetters which at 
Edinburgh had obstructed thesagacious Hutton and hisdisciples 
in the promotion of his doctrine of the igneous origin of certain 
rocks, and the great length of geological time, were equal ob- 
stacles in the path of Lyell and his then new school of Uni- 
formitarians. The advisability, in the minds of the old or con- 
servative school of geologists (if indeed they deserved the name, j 
the absolute necessity, in the opinion of theologians, and un- 
reasoning prejudice on the part of the multitude who caught 
up tlieir ideas at second-hand but for that reason clung to them 
all the more doggedly — all these combined to suppress indepen- 
dent thought along certain suspected lines, and to foster attempts 
to close or to bridge the chasm that was beginning to yawn 
between the two parties. Apprehension on both sides produced 
opposite results. The geologists of the new school kept silence 
