The foundations of The origin of species : a sketch written in 1842 / edited by Francis Darwin.
- Charles Darwin
- Date:
- 1909
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The foundations of The origin of species : a sketch written in 1842 / edited by Francis Darwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.
59/94 page 27
![not those which have chanced to be the oldest not destroyed,—or the first which existed in profoundly deep seas in progress of conversion from sea to land: if they are first they (? we) give up. Not so Hutton or Lyell: if first reptile1 of Red Sandstone (?) really was first which existed: if Pachyderm2 of Paris was first which existed : fish of Devonian: dragon fly of Lias : for we cannot suppose them the progenitors: they agree too closely with existing divisions. But geologists consider Europe as (?) a passage from sea to island (?) to continent (except Wealden, see Lyell). These animals therefore, I consider then mere intro¬ duction (?) from continents long since submerged. Finally, if views of some geologists be correct, my theory must be given up. [Lyell’s views, as far as they go, are in favour, but they go so little in favour, and so much more is required, that it may (be) viewed as objection.] If geology present us with mere pages in chapters, towards end of (a) history, formed by tearing out bundles of leaves, and each page illustrating merely a small portion of the organisms of that time, the facts accord perfectly with my theory3. 1 I have interpreted as Sandstone a scrawl which I first read as Sea; I have done so at the suggestion of Professor Judd, who points out that “ footprints in the red sandstone were known at that time, and geologists were not then particular to distinguish between Amphibians and Reptiles.” 2 This refers to Cuvier’s discovery of Palceotherium &c. at Montmartre. 3 This simile is more fully given in the Origin, Ed. i. p. 310, vi. p. 452. “For my part, following out Lyell’s metaphor, I look at the natural geological record, as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been preserved ; and of each page, only here and there a few lines. Each word of the slowly-changing language, in which the history is supposed to be written, being more or less different in the interrupted succession of chapters, may represent the apparently abruptly changed forms of life, entombed in our consecutive, but widely separated formations.” Professor Judd has been good enough to point out to me, that Darwin’s metaphor is founded on the comparison of geology to history in Ch. i. of the Principles of Geology, Ed. i. 1830, vol. i. pp. 1—4. Professor Judd has also called my attention to another passage,—Principles, Ed. i. 1833, vol. iii. p. 33, when Lyell imagines an historian examining “two buried cities at the foot of Vesuvius, immediately superimposed upon each](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31351761_0061.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
