The coming of evolution : the story of a great revolution in science / by John W. Judd.

  • John Wesley Judd
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The coming of evolution : the story of a great revolution in science / by John W. Judd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    38/196 (page 24)
    Species16: ‘ Consistent uniformitarianism postulates evolution, as much in the organic as in the inorganic world17.’ It is not difficult to trace the causes of this change in the attitude of mind with which Huxley regarded the doctrine of ‘ uniformitarianism.’ He assures us ‘ I owe more than I can tell to the careful study of the Principles of Geology1*’ and again ‘ Lyell was for others as for me the chief agent in smoothing the road for Darwin19.’ From the perusal of the letters of Lyell, published in 1881, Huxley learned that the author of the Principles of Geology had, at a very early date, been convinced that evolution was true of the organic as well as of the inorganic world—though he had been unable to accept Lamarckism, or any other hypothesis on the subject that had, up to that time, been suggested. There can be little doubt, however, that a chief influence in bringing about the change in Huxley’s views was his intercourse with Darwin—who was, from first to last, an uncom- promising ‘ uniformitarian.’ We are fully justified, then, in regarding the teaching of Hutton and Lyell (to which Whewell gave the name of ‘uniformitarianism’ as being identical with evolution. The cockpit in which the great battle between catastrophism and evolution was fought out, as we shall see in the sequel, was the Geological Society of London, where doughty champions of each