The Reception of the Origin of Species | Page 9

7, 1837, volume ii., page 5:--
"In regard to this last subject [the changes from one set of animal and

vegetable species to another]...you remember what Herschel said in his
letter to me. If I had stated as plainly as he has done the possibility of
the introduction or origination of fresh species being a natural, in
contradistinction to a miraculous process, I should have raised a host of
prejudices against me, which are unfortunately opposed at every step to
any philosopher who attempts to address the public on these mysterious
subjects." See also letter to Sedgwick, January 12, 1838 ii. page 35.) He
goes on to refer to the criticisms which have been directed against him
on the ground that, by leaving species to be originated by miracle, he is
inconsistent with his own doctrine of uniformitarianism; and he leaves
it to be understood that he had not replied, on the ground of his general
objection to controversy.
Lyell's contemporaries were not without some inkling of his esoteric
doctrine. Whewell's 'History of the Inductive Sciences,' whatever its
philosophical value, is always worth reading and always interesting, if
under no other aspect than that of an evidence of the speculative limits
within which a highly-placed divine might, at that time, safely range at
will. In the course of his discussion of uniformitarianism, the
encyclopaedic Master of Trinity observes:--
"Mr. Lyell, indeed, has spoken of an hypothesis that 'the successive
creation of species may constitute a regular part of the economy of
nature,' but he has nowhere, I think, so described this process as to
make it appear in what department of science we are to place the
hypothesis. Are these new species created by the production, at long
intervals, of an offspring different in species from the parents? Or are
the species so created produced without parents? Are they gradually
evolved from some embryo substance? Or do they suddenly start from
the ground, as in the creation of the poet?...
"Some selection of one of these forms of the hypothesis, rather than the
others, with evidence for the selection, is requisite to entitle us to place
it among the known causes of change, which in this chapter we are
considering. The bare conviction that a creation of species has taken
place, whether once or many times, so long as it is unconnected with
our organical sciences, is a tenet of Natural Theology rather than of
Physical Philosophy." (Whewell's 'History,' volume iii. page 639-640
(Edition 2, 1847.))
The earlier part of this criticism appears perfectly just and appropriate;

but, from the concluding paragraph, Whewell evidently imagines that
by "creation" Lyell means a preternatural intervention of the Deity;
whereas the letter to Herschel shows that, in his own mind, Lyell meant
natural causation; and I see no reason to doubt (The following passages
in Lyell's letters appear to me decisive on this point:--
To Darwin, October 3, 1859 (ii, 325), on first reading the 'Origin.'
"I have long seen most clearly that if any concession is made, all that
you claim in your concluding pages will follow.
"It is this which has made me so long hesitate, always feeling that the
case of Man and his Races, and of other animals, and that of plants, is
one and the same, and that if a vera causa be admitted for one instant,
[instead] of a purely unknown and imaginary one, such as the word
'creation,' all the consequences must follow."
To Darwin, March 15, 1863 (volume ii. page 365).
"I remember that it was the conclusion he [Lamarck] came to about
man that fortified me thirty years ago against the great impression
which his arguments at first made on my mind, all the greater because
Constant Prevost, a pupil of Cuvier's forty years ago, told me his
conviction 'that Cuvier thought species not real, but that science could
not advance without assuming that they were so.'"
To Hooker, March 9, 1863 (volume ii. page 361), in reference to
Darwin's feeling about the 'Antiquity of Man.'
"He [Darwin] seems much disappointed that I do not go farther with
him, or do not speak out more. I can only say that I have spoken out to
the full extent of my present convictions, and even beyond my state of
FEELING as to man's unbroken descent from the brutes, and I find I
am half converting not a few who were in arms against Darwin, and are
even now against Huxley." He speaks of having had to abandon "old
and long cherished ideas, which constituted the charm to me of the
theoretical part of the science in my earlier day, when I believed with
Pascal in the theory, as Hallam terms it, of 'the arch-angel ruined.'"
See the same sentiment in the letter to Darwin, March 11, 1863,