CHAP. VI - The Principles of Geology

Summary

We have seen that as early as the year 1817, when he visited East Anglia, Lyell began to experience vague doubts concerning the soundness of the ‘Catastrophist’ doctrines, which had been so strongly impressed upon him by Buckland. And these doubts in the mind of the undergraduate of twenty years of age gradually acquired strength and definiteness during his frequent geological excursions, at home and abroad, during the next ten years. At what particular date the design was formed of writing a book and attacking the predominant beliefs of his fellow-geologists, we have no means of ascertaining exactly; but from a letter written to his friend Dr Mantell, we find that at one time Lyell contemplated publishing a book in the form of ‘Conversations in Geology,’ without putting his name to it. This was probably suggested by the manner in which Copernicus and Galileo sought to circumvent theological opposition in the case of Astronomical Theory.

But this plan appears to have been soon abandoned; and by the end of the year 1827, when he had reached the age of thirty, Lyell had sent to the printer the first manuscript of the Principles of Geology, proposing that it should appear in the course of the following year in two octavo volumes.