E-text prepared by Brownfox
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

The Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature

THE COMING OF EVOLUTION

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

London: FETTER LANE, E.C.

C. F. CLAY, Manager

Edinburgh: 100, PRINCES STREET

London: H. K. LEWIS, 136, GOWER STREET, W.C.

Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO.

Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS

New York: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.

All rights reserved

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

How has this revolution in thought—the greatest which has occurred in modern times—been brought about? What manner of men were they who were the leaders in this great movement? What the influences that led them to discard the old views and adopt new ones? And, under what circumstances were they able to produce the works which so profoundly affected the opinions of the day? These are the questions with which I propose to deal in the following pages.

It has been my own rare good fortune to have enjoyed the friendship of all the great leaders in this important movement—of Huxley, Hooker, Scrope, Wallace, Lyell and Darwin—and, with some of them, I was long on terms of affectionate intimacy. From their own lips I have learned of incidents, and listened to anecdotes, bearing on the events of a memorable past. Would that I could hope to bring before my readers, in all their nobility, a vivid picture of the characteristics of the men to whom science and the world owe so much!

For it is not only by their intellectual greatness that we are impressed. Every man of science is proud, and justly proud, of the grandeur of character, the unexampled generosity, the modesty and simplicity which distinguished these pioneers in a great cause. It is unfortunately true, that the votaries of science—like the cultivators of art and literature—have sometimes so far forgotten their high vocation, as to have been more careful about the priority of their personal claims than of the purity of their own motives—they have sometimes, it must be sadly admitted, allowed self-interest to obscure the interests of science. But in the story we have to relate there are no 'regrettable incidents' to be deplored; never has there occurred any event that marred the harmony in this band of fellow-workers, striving towards a great ideal. So noble, indeed, was the great central figure—Charles Darwin—that his senior Lyell and all his juniors were bound to him by the strongest ties of admiration, respect and affection; while he, in his graceful modesty, thought more of them than of himself, of the results of their labours rather than of his own great achievement.

It is not, as sometimes suggested, the striking out of new ideas which is of the greatest importance in the history of science, but rather the accumulation of observations and experiments, the reasonings based upon these, and the writings in which facts and reasonings are presented to the world—by which a merely suggestive hypothesis becomes a vivifying theory—that really count in making history.

Talking with Matthew Arnold in 1871, he laughingly remarked to me 'I cannot understand why you scientific people make such a fuss about Darwin. Why it's all in Lucretius!' On my replying, 'Yes! Lucretius guessed what Darwin proved,' he mischievously rejoined 'Ah! that only shows how much greater Lucretius really was,—for he divined a truth, which Darwin spent a life of labour in groping for.'

Mr Alfred Russel Wallace has so well and clearly set forth the essential difference between the points of view of the cultivators of literature and science in this matter, that I cannot do better than to quote his words. They are as follows:—

Ideas of Evolution, both in the Organic and the Inorganic world, existed but remained barren for thousands of years. Yet by the labours of a band of workers in last century, these ideas, which were but the dreams of poets and the guesses of philosophers, came to be the accepted creed of working naturalists, while they have profoundly affected thought and language in every branch of human enterprise.

CHAPTER II

In all ages, and in all parts of the world, we find that primitive man has delighted in speculating on the birth of the world in which he lives, on the origin of the living things that surround him, and especially on the beginnings of the race of beings to which he himself belongs. In a recent very interesting essay[2], the author of The Golden Bough has collected, from the records of tradition, history and travel, a valuable mass of evidence concerning the legends which have grown out of these speculations. Myths of this kind would appear to fall into two categories, each of which may not improbably be associated with the different pursuits followed by the uncivilised races of mankind.

Tillers of the soil, impressed as they must have been by the great annual miracle of the outburst of vegetable life as spring returns, naturally adopted one of these lines of speculation. From the dead, bare ground they witnessed the upspringing of all the wondrous beauty of the plant-world, and, in their ignorance of the chemistry of vegetable life, they imagined that the herbs, shrubs and trees are all alike built up out of the materials contained in the soil from which they grow. The recognition of the fact that animals feed on plants, or on one another, led to the obvious conclusion that the ultimate materials of animal, as well as of vegetable, structures were to be sought for in the soil. And this view was confirmed by the fact that, when life ceases in plants or animals, all alike are reduced to 'dust' and again become a part of the soil—returning 'earth to earth.' In groping therefore for an explanation of the origin of living things, what could be more natural than the supposition that the first plants and animals—like those now surrounding us—were made and fashioned from the soil, dust or earth—all had been 'clay in the hands of a potter.' The widely diffused notion that man himself must have been moulded out of red clay is probably accounted for by the colour of our internal organs.

Thus originated a large class of legendary stories, many of them of a very grotesque character. Even in many mediaeval sculptures, in this country and on the continent, the Deity is represented as moulding with his hands the semblance of a human figure out of a shapeless lump of clay.

But among the primitive hunters and herdsmen a very different line of speculation appears to have originated, for by their occupations they were continually brought into contact with an entirely different class of phenomena. They could not but notice that the creatures which they hunted or tended, and slew, presented marked resemblances to themselves—in their structures, their functions, their diseases, their dispositions, and their habits. When dogs and horses became the servants and companions of men, and when various beasts and birds came to be kept as pets, the mental and even the moral processes characterising the intelligence of these animals must have been seen by their masters to be identical in kind with those of their own minds. Do we not even at the present day compare human characteristics with those of animals, the courage of the lion, the cunning of the fox, the fidelity of the dog, and the parental affection of the bird? And the men, who depended for their very existence on studying the ways of various animals, could not have been less impressed by these qualities than are we.

Mr Frazer has shown how, from such considerations, the legends concerning the relations of certain tribes of men with particular species of animals have arisen, and thus the cults of 'sacred animals' and of 'totemism' have been gradually developed. From comparisons of human courage, sagacity, swiftness, strength or perseverance, with similar qualities displayed by certain animals, it was an easy transition to the idea that such characteristics were derived by inheritance.

In the absence of any exact knowledge of anatomy and physiology, the resemblances of animals to themselves would quite outbulk the differences in the eyes of primitive men, and the idea of close relationship in blood does not appear to have been regarded with distaste. In their origin and in their destiny, no distinction was drawn between man and what we now designate as the 'lower' animals. Primitive man not only feels no repugnance to such kinship:—

It should perhaps be remembered, too, that, in the breeding of domestic animals, the great facts of heredity and variation could not fail to have been noticed, and must have given rise to reflection and speculation. The selection of the best animals for breeding purposes, and the consequent improvement of their stock, may well have suggested the transmutation of one kind of animal into a different kind, just as the crossing of different kinds of animals seems to have suggested the possible existence of centaurs, griffins and other monstrous forms.

How early the principles of variation and heredity, and even the possibility of improving breeds by selection, must have been appreciated by early men is illustrated by the old story of the way in which the wily Jacob made an attempt—however futile were the means he adopted—to cheat his employer Laban[4].

Yet, in spite of observed tendencies to variation among animals and plants, early man must have been convinced of the existence of distinct kinds ('species') in both the vegetable and animal worlds; he recognised that plants of definite kinds yielded particular fruits, and that different kinds of animals did not breed promiscuously with one another, but that, pairing each with its own kind, all gave rise to like offspring, and thus arose the idea of distinct 'species' of plants and animals.

It must be remembered, however, that for a long time 'the world' was believed to be limited to a few districts surrounding the Eastern Mediterranean, and the kinds or 'species' of animals and plants were supposed to number a few scores or at most hundreds. This being the case, the sudden stocking of 'the world' with its complement of animals and plants would be thought a comparatively simple operation, and the violent destruction of the whole a scarcely serious result. Even the possibility of the preservation of pairs of all the different species, in a ship of moderate dimensions, was one that was easily entertained and was not calculated to awaken either surprise or incredulity.

But how different is the problem as it now presents itself to us! In the year 1900 Professor S. H. Vines of Oxford estimated that the number of 'species' of plants that have been described could be little short of 200,000, and that future studies, especially of the lower microscopic forms, would probably bring that number up to 300,000[5]. Last year, Mr A. E. Shipley of Cambridge, basing his estimate on the earlier one of Dr Günther, came to the conclusion that the number of described animals must also exceed 300,000[6]. On the lowest estimate then we must place the number of known species of plants and animals, living on the globe, as 600,000! And if we consider the numbers of new forms of plants and animals that every year are being described by naturalists—about 1500 plants and 1200 animals—if we take into account the inaccessible or as yet unvisited portions of the earth's surface, the very imperfectly known depths of the sea, and, in addition to these, the almost infinite varieties of minute and microscopic forms, I think every competent judge would consider a million as being probably an estimate below, rather than above, the number of 'species' now existing on the earth!

While some of these species are very widely distributed over the earth's surface, or in the waters of the oceans, seas, lakes and rivers, there are others which are as strikingly limited in their range. Many of the myriad forms of insect-life pass their whole existence, and are dependent for food, on a particular species of plant. Not a few animals and plants are parasitical, and can only live in the interior or on the outside of other plants and animals.

It will be seen from these considerations that in attempting to decide between the two hypotheses of the origin of species—the only ones ever suggested—namely the fashioning of them out of dead matter, or their descent with modification from pre-existing forms, we are dealing with a problem of much greater complexity than could possibly have been imagined by the early speculators on the subject.

The two strongly contrasted hypotheses to which we have referred are often spoken of as 'creation' and 'evolution.' But this is an altogether illegitimate use of these terms. By whatever method species of plants or animals come into existence, they may be rightly said to be 'created.' We speak of the existing plants and animals as having been created, although we well know them to have been 'evolved' from seeds, eggs and other 'germs'—and indeed from those excessively minute and simple structures known as 'cells.' Lyell and Darwin, as we shall presently see, though they were firmly convinced that species of plants and animals were slowly developed and not suddenly manufactured, wrote constantly and correctly of the 'creation' of new forms of life.

The idea of 'descent with modification,' derived from the early speculations of hunters and herdsmen, is really a much nobler and more beautiful conception of 'creation' than that of the 'fashioning out of clay,' which commended itself to the primitive agriculturalists.

Lyell writing to his friend John Herschel, who like himself believed in the derivation of new species from pre-existing ones by the action of secondary causes, wrote in 1836:—

And Darwin concludes his presentment of the doctrine of evolution in the Origin of Species in 1859 with the following sentence:—

Compare with these suggestions the ideas embodied in the following lines—ideas of which the crudeness cannot be concealed by all the witchery of Milton's immortal verse:—

Can anyone doubt for a moment which is the grander view of 'Creation'—that embodied in Darwin's prose, or the one so strikingly pictured in Milton's poetry?

We see then that the two ideas of the method of creation, dimly perceived by early man, have at last found clear and definite expression from these two authors—Milton and Darwin. It is a singular coincidence that these two great exponents of the rival hypotheses were both students in the same University of Cambridge and indeed resided in the same foundation—and that not one of the largest of that University—namely Christ's College.

CHAPTER III

The dwellers in the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris could not but be impressed by the great and destructive floods to which those regions were subject; and the inhabitants of the shores and islands of the Aegean Sea, and of the Italian peninsula, were equally conversant with the devastations wrought by volcanic outbursts and earthquake shocks. As great districts were seen to be depopulated by these catastrophies, might not some even more violent cataclysm of the same kind actually destroy all mankind, with the animals and plants, in the comparatively small area then known as 'the world'? The great flood, of which all these nations appear to have retained traditions, was regarded as only the last of such destructive cataclysms; and, in this way, there originated the myth of successive destructions of the face of the earth, each followed by the creation of new stocks of plants and animals. This is the doctrine now known as 'Catastrophism,' which we find prevalent in the earliest traditions and writings of India, Babylonia, Syria and Greece.

But in ancient Egypt quite another class of phenomena was conspicuously presented to the early philosophers of the country. Instead of sudden floods and terrible displays of volcanic and earthquake violence, they witnessed the annual gentle rise and overflowings of their grand river, with its beneficent heritage of new soil; and they soon learned to recognise that Egypt itself—so far as the delta was concerned—was 'the gift of the Nile.'

From the contemplation of these phenomena, the Egyptian sages were gradually led to entertain the idea that all the features of the earth—as they knew it—might have been similarly produced through the slow and constant action of the causes now seen in operation around them. This idea was incorporated in a myth, which was suggested by the slow and gradual transformation of an egg into a perfect, growing organism. The birth of the world was pictured as an act of incubation, and male and female deities were invented to play the part of parents to the infant world. By Pythagoras, who resided for more than twenty years in Egypt, these ideas were introduced to the Greek philosophers, and from that time 'Catastrophism' found a rival in the new doctrine which we shall see has been designated under the names of 'Continuity,' 'Uniformitarianism' or 'Evolution.' How, from the first crude notions of evolution, successive thinkers developed more just and noble conceptions on the subject, has been admirably shown by Professor Osborn in his From the Greeks to Darwin and by Mr Clodd in his Pioneers of Evolution.

Poets, from Empedocles and Lucretius to Goethe and Tennyson, have sought in their verses to illustrate the beauty of evolutionary ideas; and philosophers, from Aristotle and Strabo to Kant and Herbert Spencer, have recognised the principle of evolution as harmonising with, and growing out of, the highest conceptions of science. Yet it was not till the Nineteenth Century that any serious attempts were made to establish the hypothesis of evolution as a definite theory, based on sound reasoning from careful observation.

It is true that there were men, in advance of their age, who in some cases anticipated to a certain extent this work of establishing the doctrine of evolution on a firm foundation. Thus in Italy, the earliest home of so many sciences, a Carmelite friar, Generelli, reasoning on observations made by his compatriots Fracastoro and Leonardo da Vinci in the Sixteenth Century, Steno and Scilla in the Seventeenth, and Lazzaro Moro and Marsilli in the Eighteenth Century, laid the foundations of a rational system of geology in a work published in 1749 which was characterised alike by courage and eloquence. In France, the illustrious Nicolas Desmarest, from his study of the classical region of the Auvergne, was able to show, in 1777, how the river valleys of that district had been carved out by the rivers that flow in them. Nor were there wanting geologists with similar previsions in Germany and Switzerland.

But none of these early exponents of geological theory came so near to anticipating the work of the Nineteenth Century as did the illustrious James Hutton, whose 'Theory of the Earth,' a first sketch of which was published in 1785, was a splendid exposition of evolution as applied to the inorganic world. Unfortunately, Hutton's theory was linked to the extravagancies of what was known at that day as 'Vulcanism' or 'Plutonism,' in contradistinction to the 'Neptunism' of Werner. Hutton, while rejecting the Wernerian notion of "the aqueous precipitation of basalt," maintained the equally fanciful idea that the consolidation of all strata—clays, sandstones, conglomerates, limestones and even rock-salt—must be ascribed to the action of heat, and that even the formation of chalk-flints and the silicification of fossil wood were due to the injection of molten silica!

What was still more unfortunate in Hutton's case was that, in his enthusiasm, he used expressions which led to his being charged with heresy and even with being an enemy of religion. His writings were further so obscure in style as often to lead to misconception as to their true meaning, while his great work—so far as the fragment which was published goes—contained few records of original observations on which his theory was based.

Dr Fitton has pointed out very striking coincidences between the writings of Generelli and those of Hutton, and has suggested that the latter may have derived his views from the eloquent Italian friar[10]. But for this suggestion, I think that there is no real foundation. Darwin and Wallace, as we shall see later, were quite unconscious of their having been forestalled in the theory of Natural Selection by Dr Wells and Patrick Matthew; and Hutton, like his successor Lyell, in all probability arrived, quite independently, and by different lines of reasoning, at conclusions identical with those of Generelli and Desmarest.

Although, as we shall see, Hutton failed to greatly influence the scientific thought of his day, yet all will now agree with Lyell that 'Hutton laboured to give fixed principles to geology, as Newton had succeeded in doing to astronomy[11]'; and with Zittel that 'Hutton's Theory of the Earth is one of the masterpieces in the history of geology[12].'

CHAPTER IV

The causes of the neglect and opprobrium which befel all evolutionary teachings are not difficult to discover. The old Greek philosophers saw no more reason to doubt the possibility of creation by evolution, than by direct mechanical means. But, on the revival of learning in Europe, evolution was at once confronted by the cosmogonies of Jewish and Arabian writers, which were incorporated in sacred books; and not only were the ideas of the sudden making and destruction of the world and all things in it regarded as revealed truth, but the periods of time necessary for evolution could not be admitted by those who believed the beginning of the world to have been recent, and its end to be imminent. Thus 'Catastrophic' ideas came to be regarded as orthodox, and evolutionary ones as utterly irreligious and damnable.

There are few more curious facts in the history of science than the contrast between the reception of the teaching of the Saxon professor Werner, and those of Hutton, the Scotch philosopher, his great rival. While the enthusiastic disciples of the former carried their master's ideas everywhere, acting with missionary zeal and fervour, and teaching his doctrines almost as though they were a divine revelation, the latter, surrounded by a few devoted friends, saw his teachings everywhere received with persistent misrepresentation, theological vituperation or contemptuous neglect. Even in Edinburgh itself, one of Werner's pupils dominated the teaching of the University for half a century, and established a society for the propagation of the views which Hutton so strongly opposed.

When it is remembered that Hutton wrote at a time when 'heresy-hunting' in this country had been excited to such a dangerous extent, through the excesses of the French Revolution, that his contemporary, Priestley, had been hounded from his home and country for proclaiming views which at that time were regarded as unscriptural, it becomes less difficult to understand the prejudice that was excited against the gentle and modest philosopher of Edinburgh.

We have employed the term 'Catastrophism' to indicate the views which were prevalent at the beginning of last century concerning the origin of the rock-masses of the globe and their fossil contents. These views were that at a number of successive epochs—of which the age of Noah was the latest—great revolutions had taken place on the earth's surface; that during each of these cataclysms all living things were destroyed; and that, after an interval, the world was restocked with fresh assemblages of plants and animals, to be destroyed in turn and entombed in the strata at the next revolution.

Whewell, in 1830, contrasted this teaching with that of Hutton and Lyell in the following passage:—'These two opinions will probably for some time divide the geological world into two sects, which may perhaps be designated the "Uniformitarians" and the "Catastrophists." The latter has undoubtedly been of late the prevalent doctrine.' It is interesting to note, as showing the confidence felt in their tenets by the 'Catastrophists' of that day, that Whewell adds 'We conceive that Mr Lyell will find it a harder task than he imagines to overturn the established belief[13]!'

Some authors have suggested that the doctrine taught by Generelli, Desmarest and Hutton, and later by Scrope and Lyell, for which Whewell proposed the somewhat cumbrous term 'Uniformitarianism,' but which was perhaps better designated by Grove in 1866 as 'Continuity[14],' was distinct from, and subsidiary to, Evolution—and this view could claim for a time the support of a very great authority.

In 1869, Huxley delivered an address to the Geological Society, in which he postulated the existence of 'three more or less contradictory systems of geological thought,' under the names of 'Catastrophism,' 'Uniformitarianism' and 'Evolution.' In this essay, distinguished by all his wonderful lucidity and forceful logic, Huxley sought to establish the position that evolution is a doctrine, distinct from and in advance of that of uniformitarianism, and that Hutton and Playfair—'and to a less extent Lyell'—had acted unwisely in deprecating the extension of Geology into enquiries concerning 'the beginning of things[15].'

But there is no doubt that Huxley at a later period was led to qualify, and indeed to largely modify, the views maintained in that address. In a footnote to an essay written in April 1887, he asserts 'What I mean by "evolutionism" is consistent and thoroughgoing uniformitarianism'; and in the same year he wrote in his Reception of the Origin of Species[16]: 'Consistent uniformitarianism postulates evolution, as much in the organic as in the inorganic world[17].'

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 Geology[18],' and again 'Lyell was for others as for me the chief agent in smoothing the road for Darwin[19].' 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 uncompromising '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 of the rival doctrines met in frequent combat and long maintained the struggle for supremacy.

Fitton has very truly said that 'the views proposed by Hutton failed to produce general conviction at the time; and several years elapsed before any one showed himself publicly concerned about them, either as an enemy or a friend[20].' Sad is it to relate that, when notice was at last taken of the memoir on the 'Theory of the Earth,' it was by bitter opponents—such 'Philistines' (as Huxley calls them) as Kirwan, De Luc and Williams, who declared the author to be an enemy of religion. Not only did Hutton, unlike the writers of other theories of the earth, omit any statement that his views were based on the Scriptures, but, carried away by the beauty of the system of continuity which he advocated, he wrote enthusiastically 'the result of this physical enquiry is that we find no vestige of a beginning—no prospect of an end[21].' This was unjustly asserted to be equivalent to a declaration that the world had neither beginning nor end; and thus it came about that Wernerism, Neptunism and Catastrophism were long regarded as synonymous with Orthodoxy, while Plutonism and 'Uniformitarianism' were looked upon with aversion and horror as subversive of religion and morality.

Almost simultaneously with the foundation of the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh (in 1807) was the establishment in London of the Geological Society. Originating in a dining club of collectors of minerals, the society consisted at first almost exclusively of mineralogists and chemists, including Davy, Wollaston, Sir James Hall, and later, Faraday and Turner. The bitter but barren conflict between the Neptunists and the Plutonists was then at its height, and it was, from the first, agreed in the infant society to confine its work almost entirely to the collection of facts, eschewing theory. During the first decade of its existence, it is true, the chief papers published by the society were on mineralogical questions; but gradually geology began to assert itself. The actual founder and first president of the society, Greenough, had been a pupil of Werner, and used all his great influence to discourage the dissemination of any but Wernerian doctrines—foreign geologists, like Dr Berger, being subsidised to apply the Wernerian classification and principles to the study of British rocks. Thus, in early days, the Geological Society became almost as completely devoted to the teaching of Wernerian doctrines as was the contemporary society in Edinburgh.

Dr Buckland used to say that when he joined the Geological Society in 1813, 'it had a very landed manner, and only admitted the professors of geology in Oxford and Cambridge on sufferance.'

But, gradually, changes began to be felt in this aristocratic body of exclusive amateurs and wealthy collectors of minerals. William Smith, 'the Father of English Geology'—though he published little and never joined the society—exercised a most important influence on its work. By his maps, and museum of specimens, as well as by his communications, so freely made known, concerning his method of 'identifying strata by their organic remains,' many of the old geologists, who were not aware at the time of the source of their inspiration, were led to adopt entirely new methods of studying the rocks. In this way, the accurate mineralogical and geognostical methods of Werner came to be supplemented by the fruitful labours of the stratigraphical palaeontologist. The new school of geologists included men like William Phillips, Conybeare, Sedgwick, Buckland, De la Beche, Fitton, Mantell, Webster, Lonsdale, Murchison, John Phillips and others, who laid the foundations of British stratigraphical geology.

But these great geological pioneers, almost without exception, maintained the Wernerian doctrines and were firm adherents of Catastrophism. The three great leaders—the enthusiastic Buckland, the eloquent Sedgwick, and the indefatigable Conybeare—were clergymen, as were also Whewell and Henslow, and they were all honestly, if mistakenly, convinced that the Huttonian teaching was opposed to the Scriptures and inimical to religion and morality. Buckland at Oxford, and Sedgwick at Cambridge, made geology popular by combining it with equestrian exercise; and Whewell tells us how the eccentric Buckland used to ride forth from the University, with a long cavalcade of mounted students, holding forth with sarcasm and ridicule concerning 'the inadequacy of existing causes[22].'

And Sedgwick at Cambridge was no less firmly opposed to evolutionary doctrine, eloquently declaiming at all times against the unscriptural tenets of the Huttonians.

I cannot better illustrate the complete neglect at that time by leading geologists in this country of the Huttonian teaching than by pointing to the Report drawn up in 1833, by Conybeare, for the British Association, on 'The Progress, Actual State and Ulterior Prospects of Geological Science[23].' This valuable memoir of 47 pages opens with a sketch of the history of the science, in which the chief Italian, French and German investigators are referred to, but the name of Hutton is not even mentioned!

And if positive evidence is required of the contempt which the early geologists felt for Hutton and his teachings, it will be found in the same author's introduction to that classical work, the Outlines of Geology (1822), in which he says of Hutton, after praising his views on granite veins and "trap rocks":—