The 33+ Charles Lyell Quotes

In The Course Of This Short Tour, I Became Convinced That We Must Turn To The New World If We Wish To See In Perfection The Oldest Monuments Of The Earth's History, So Far At Least As Relates To Its Earliest Inhabitants.

The Earth's Becoming At A Particular Period The Residence Of Human Beings, Was An Era In The Moral, Not In The Physical World, That Our Study And Contemplation Of The Earth, And The Laws Which Govern Its Animate Productions, Ought No More To Be Considered In The Light Of A Disturbance Or Deviation From The System, Than The Discovery Of The Satellites Of Jupiter Should Be Regarded As A Physical Event In The History Of Those Heavenly Bodies, However Influential They May Have Become From That Time In Advancing The Progress Of Sound Philosophy Among Men.

No Tools Have Yet Been Met With In Any Of The Gravels Occurring At The Higher Levels Of The Valley Of The Seine; But No Importance Can Be Attached To This Negative Fact, As So Little Search Has Yet Been Made For Them.

That Ere Long, Now That Curiosity Has Been So Much Excited On This Subject, Some Human Remains Will Be Detected In The Older Alluvium Of European Valleys, I Confidently Expect.

Such Discoveries Have Led Me, And Other Geologists, To Reconsider The Evidence Previously Derived From Caves Brought Forward In Proof Of The High Antiquity Of Man.

It Has Long Been A Fact Familiar To Geologists, That, Both On The East And West Coasts Of The Central Part Of Scotland, There Are Lines Of Raised Beaches, Containing Marine Shells Of The Same Species As Those Now Inhabiting The Neighbouring Sea.

I Long Ago Suggested The Hypothesis, That In The Basin Of The Thames There Are Indications Of A Meeting In The Pleistocene Period Of A Northern And Southern Fauna.

I May Conclude This Chapter By Quoting A Saying Of Professor Agassiz, That Whenever A New And Startling Fact Is Brought To Light In Science, People First Say, 'it Is Not True,' Then That 'it Is Contrary To Religion,' And Lastly, 'that Everybody Knew It Before.'

Probably There Was A Beginning-it Is A Metaphysical Question, Worthy A Theologian-species Have Begun And Ended-but The Analogy Is Faint And Distant.

Hitherto, No Rival Hypothesis Has Been Proposed As A Substitute For The Doctrine Of Transmutation; For 'independent Creation,' As It Is Often Termed, Or The Direct Intervention Of The Supreme Cause, Must Simply Be Considered As An Avowal That We Deem The Question To Lie Beyond The Domain Of Science.

The Question Now At Issue, Whether The Living Species Are Connected With The Extinct By A Common Bond Of Descent, Will Best Be Cleared Up By Devoting Ourselves To The Study Of The Actual State Of The Living World, And To Those Monuments Of The Past In Which The Relics Of The Animate Creation Of Former Ages Are Best Preserved And Least Mutilated By The Hand Of Time.

The Ordinary Naturalist Is Not Sufficiently Aware That When Dogmatizing On What Species Are, He Is Grappling With The Whole Question Of The Organic World & Its Connection With The Time Past & With Man; That It Involves The Question Of Man & His Relation To The Brutes, Of Instinct, Intelligence & Reason, Of Creation, Transmutation & Progressive Improvement Or Development. Each Set Of Geological Questions & Of Ethnological & Zool. & Botan. Are Parts Of The Great Problem Which Is Always Assuming A New Aspect.