Charles Lyell - Principles of Geology (1830)

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Until we habituate ourselves to contemplate the possibility of an indefinite lapse of time having been comprised within each of the modern periods of earth's history, we shall be in danger of forming most erroneous and partial views of geology.

Charles Lyell
In vein do we aspire to assign limits to the works of creation in space, whether we examine the starry heavens, or that world of minute animalcules which is revealed to us by the microscope. We are prepared, therefore, to find that in time also the confines of the universe lie beyond the reach of mortal ken.

Charles Lyell
In another place, this learned geographer (Strabo), in alluding to the tradition that Sicily had been separated by a convulsion from Italy, remarks, that at present the land near the sea in those parts was rarely shaken by earthquakes, since there were now open orifices whereby fire and ignited matters and waters escaped; but formerly, when the volcanoes of Etna, the Lipari Islands, Ischia, and others, were closed up, the imprisoned fire and wind might have produced far more vehement movements. The doctrine, therefore, that volcanoes are safety valves, and that the subterranean convulsions are probably most violent when first the volcanic energy shifts itself to a new quarter, is not modern.

Charles Lyell
Opponents of Fracastoro met his arguments by feigning imaginary causes, which differed from each other rather in name than in substance. Andrea Mattioli, for instance, an eminent botanist, the illustrator of Dioscorides, embraced the notion of Agricola, a German miner, that a certain 'materia pinguis' or 'fatty matter,' set into fermentation by heat, gave birth to fossil organic shapes. Yet Mattioli had come to the conclusion, from his own observations, that porous bodies, such as bones and shells, might be converted into stone, as being permeable to what he termed the 'lapidifying juice.'

Charles Lyell
It was not till the earlier part of the sixteenth century that geological phenomena began to attract the attention of the Christian nations. At that period a very animated controversy sprung up in Italy, concerning the true nature and origin of marine shells, and other organized fossils, found abundantly in the strata of the peninsula.

Charles Lyell
In a rude state of society all great calamities are regarded by the people as judgments of God on the wickedness of man.

Charles Lyell
The form of a coast, the configuration of the interior of a country, the existence and extent of lakes, valleys, and mountains, can often be traced to the former prevalence of earthquakes and volcanoes in regions which have long been undisturbed. To these remote convulsions the present fertility of some districts the sterile character of others, the elevation of land above the sea, the climate, and various peculiarities, may be distinctly referred.

Charles Lyell
'In the economy of the world,' said the Scotch geologist, [James Hutton], 'I can find no traces of a beginning, no prospect of an end.'

Charles Lyell
Fabio Colonna deserves to be distinguished; for, although he gave way to the dogma that all fossil remains were to be referred to the Noachian deluge, he resisted the absurd theory of Stelluti, who taught that fossil wood and ammonites were mere clay, altered into such forms by sulfurous waters and subterranean heat; and he pointed out the different states of shells buried in the strata, distinguishing between, first, the mere mould or impression; secondly, the cast or nucleus; and thirdly, the remains of the shell itself. He had also the merit of being the first to point out, that some of the fossils had belonged to marine, and some to terrestrial testacea.

Charles Lyell
The clear and philosophical views of Fracastoro were disregarded, and the talent and argumentative powers of the learned were doomed for three centuries to be wasted in the discussion of these two simple and preliminary questions: first, whether fossil remains had ever belonged to living creatures; and secondly, whether, if this be admitted, all the phenomena could be explained by the Noachian deluge.

Charles Lyell
It must have appeared almost as improbable to the earlier geologists, that the laws of earthquakes should one day throw light on the origin of mountains, as it must to the first astronomers, that the fall of an apple should assist in explaining the motions of the moon.

Charles Lyell
A sketch of the progress of Geology is the history of a constant and violent struggle between new opinions and ancient doctrines sanctioned by the implicit faith of many generations and supposed to rest on scriptural authority. The inquiry, therefore, although highly interesting to one who studies the philosophy of the human mind, is singularly barren of instruction to him who searches for truths in physical science.

Charles Lyell
From the works now extant of Aristotle, and from the system of Pythagoras... we might certainly infer that these philosophers considered the agents of change now operating in Nature, as capable of bringing about in the lapse of ages a complete revolution; and the Stagyrite even considers occasional catastrophes happening at distant intervals of time as part of the regular and ordinary course of Nature.

Charles Lyell
We learn from a passage in Strabo, that it was a dogma of the Gaulish Druids that the universe was immortal, but destined to survive catastrophes both of fire and water. That this doctrine was communicated to them from the East, with much of their learning, cannot be doubted.

Charles Lyell
Von Hoff has suggested, with great probability, that the changes in the level of the Caspian (some of which there is reason to believe have happened within the historical era), and the geological appearances in that district, indicating the desertion by that sea of its ancient bed, had probably led Omar to his theory of a general subsidence. But whatever may have been the proofs relied on, his system was declared contradictory to certain passages in the Koran, and he was called upon publicly to recant his errors; to avoid which persecution he went into voluntary banishment from Samarkand.

Charles Lyell
Pliny had no theoretical opinions of his own concerning changes of the earth's surface... But his enumeration of the new islands which had been formed in the Mediterranean, and of other convulsions, shows that the ancients had not been inattentive observers of the changes which had taken place on the earth within the memory of man.

Charles Lyell
We find in certain localities subterranean deposits of coal consisting of vegetable matter formerly drifted into seas and lakes.... These seas and The commercial prosperity and numerical strength of a nation may now be mainly dependent on the local distribution of fuel determined by that ancient state of things.

Charles Lyell
Respecting the cosmogony of the Egyptian priests, we gather much information from writers of the Grecian sects, who borrowed almost all their tenets from Egypt, and amongst others that of the former successive destruction and renovation of the world.

Charles Lyell
Palissy, a French writer on 'the Origin of Springs from Rain-water' and of other scientific works, undertook, in 1580, to combat the notions of many of his contemporaries in Italy, that petrified shells had all been deposited by the universal deluge. 'He was the first,' said Fontenelle, when, in the French Academy, he pronounced his eulogy nearly a century and a half later, 'who dared assert' in Paris, that fossil remains of testacea and fish had once belonged to marine animals.

Charles Lyell
The old diluvialists were induced by their system to confound all the groups of strata together instead of discriminating,—to refer all appearances to one cause and to one brief period, not to a variety of causes acting throughout a long succession of epochs.... Under the influence of such prejudices, three centuries were of as little avail, as a few years in our own times, when we are no longer required to propel the vessel against the force of an adverse current.

Charles Lyell
We know that the Egyptian priests were aware, not only that the soil beneath the plains of the Nile, but that also the hills bounding the great valley, contained marine shells; and it could hardly have escaped the observation of Eastern philosophers, that some soils were filled with fossil remains, since so many national works were executed on a magnificent scale by oriental monarchs in very remote eras.

Charles Lyell
The earliest doctrines of the Indian and Egyptian schools of philosophy agreed in ascribing the first creation of the world to an omnipotent and infinite Being. They concurred also in representing this Being, who had existed from all eternity, as having repeatedly destroyed and reproduced the world and all its inhabitants.... We have no right to refer to mere chance the prevailing notion that the earth and its inhabitants had formerly undergone a succession of revolutions and catastrophes, interrupted by long intervals of tranquility.

Charles Lyell
The sect of Stoics adopted most fully the system of catastrophes destined at certain intervals to destroy the world. These they taught were of two kinds-the Cataclysm, or destruction by deluge, which sweeps away the whole human race, and annihilates all the animal and vegetable productions of nature; and the Ekpyrosis, or conflagration, which dissolves the globe itself. From the Egyptians also they derived the doctrine of the gradual debasement of man from a state of innocence. Towards the termination of each era the gods could no longer bear with the wickedness of men, and a shock of the elements or a deluge overwhelmed them; after which calamity, Astrea again descended on the earth, to renew the golden age.

Charles Lyell
It may be well to forewarn our readers that in tracing the history of geology from the close of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth century they must expect to be occupied with accounts of the retardation as well as of the advance of the science.... It will be necessary to dwell on futile reasoning and visionary hypothesis because the most extravagant systems were often invented or controverted by men of acknowledged talent.

Charles Lyell
Each species may have had its origin in a single pair, or individual, where an individual was sufficient, and species may have been created in succession at such times and in such places as to enable them to multiply and endure for an appointed period, and occupy an appointed space on the globe.

Charles Lyell
There is no foundation in geological facts, for the popular theory of the successive development of the animal and vegetable world, from the simplest to the most perfect forms.

Charles Lyell
It was objected to Hooke, that his doctrine of the extinction of species derogated from the wisdom and power of the Omnipotent Creator; but he answered, that as individuals die, there may be some termination to the duration of a species; and his opinions, he declared, were not repugnant to Holy Writ: for the Scriptures taught that our system was degenerating, and tending to its final dissolution; 'and as, when that shall happen, all the species will be lost, why not some at one time and some at another?'

Charles Lyell
When we study history we obtain a more profound insight into human nature by instituting a comparison between the present and former states of society.

Charles Lyell
The system of scholastic disputations encouraged in the Universities of the middle ages had unfortunately trained men to habits of indefinite argumentation, and they often preferred absurd and extravagant propositions, because greater skill was required to maintain them; the end and object of such intellectual combats being victory and not truth.

Charles Lyell
Geology is the science which investigates the successive changes that have taken place in the organic and inorganic kingdoms of nature; it enquires into the causes of these changes, and the influence which they have exerted in modifying the surface and external structure of our planet.

Charles Lyell