The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man; The Evolution Debate, 1813-1870 (Volume VIII) PDF
Preview The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man; The Evolution Debate, 1813-1870 (Volume VIII)
The Evolution Debate 1813–1870 Edited by David Knight The Evolution Debate 1813–1870 Edited and with new introductions by David Knight Volume I Essay on the Theory of the Earth Georges Cuvier Volume II Geology and Mineralogy, Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, Volume I William Buckland Volume III Geology and Mineralogy, Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, Volume II William Buckland Volume IV Omphalos Philip Gosse Volume V On the Origin of Species Charles Darwin Volume VI Palaeontology Richard Owen Volume VII Man’s Place in Nature Thomas Henry Huxley Volume VIII The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man Charles Lyell Volume IX Part I: Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection Alfred Russel Wallace Part II: On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace The Evolution Debate 1813–1870 Volume VIII The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man Charles Lyell with a new introduction by David Knight Published in Association with the Natural History Museum LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 1863 This edition reprinted 2003 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London, EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.” Editorial material and selection © 2003 David Knight All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-48947-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-57193-2 (Adobe e-Reader Format) ISBN 0-415-28922-X (Print Edition) (set) ISBN 0-415-28930-0 (Print Edition) (volume VIII) Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., F.R.S. (1797– 1875) © The Natural History Museum, London INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME VIII David Knight By 1863 Lyell was one of the most eminent of British men of science. Born in Scotland in 1797, he had studied classics at Exeter College, Oxford but had also attended William Buckland’s lectures on geology. He intended to be a lawyer, but was so attracted to geology that he made a career in it. In 1826 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, receiving its Royal Medal in 1834 and Copley Medal in 1858. In 1823 he was secretary of the Geological Society, and in 1835–37 and 1849–51 was president. In 1832 he married Mary, the daughter of the geologist Leonard Horner (whose copy of On the Origin of Species is reproduced in this set), and she took a keen interest in his work. The book that made him famous was Principles of Geology, being an Attempt to Explain the Former Changes of the Earth’s Surface, by Reference to Causes now in Operation, published by John Murray, in what became three volumes, between 1830 and 1833.1 The title summarises the book’s thesis, which became known as uniformitarianism or actualism: no mysterious catastrophes like those in Georges Cuvier’s Essay on the Theory of the Earth must be invoked. Lyell concluded that his predecessors had been prodigal of violence because they had been parsimonious of time: given millions of years, the slow processes we witness produce enormous changes. Charles Darwin took the first volume with him on HMS Beagle, and became a convert. The book became a standard work, steadily revised and updated, with a tenth edition in 1867. Along with catastrophes, Lyell rejected Lamarck’s idea of progressive evolution. When Darwin worked out his theory of natural selection, Lyell was one of those in the secret. Although sympathetic, he was not converted, corresponding with Darwin2 and keeping notebooks in which he put down arguments for and against the theory.3 He played a major part in getting Darwin to write On the Origin of Species, and recommended it to Murray for publication; but even then he remained uncertain about evolution. It gradually became clearer to him that there really were signs of human activity associated with extinct creatures like mammoths; and careful investigations of caves, which could not have been recently interfered with, established that humankind had been around for many thousands of years. The remains found in the Neanderthal looked, at the time, like those of a more ape-like ancestor. Lyell, now with enough evidence to apply his actualism to humans, was satisfied at last that we really were the result of an evolutionary process, and published this book. Parts of the last chapter were by T.H.Huxley, and the book drew heavily upon the researches of others, notably Hugh Falconer4 and Joseph Prestwich;5 much of it was a summary and survey rather than an original monograph, but Lyell alone had the prestige to carry the argument:6 he could not be pooh-poohed. He had been knighted in 1848, became a baronet and President of the British Association in 1864, and received the Geological Society’s Wollaston Medal in 1866. Readers will note his prediction on p. 498 that human fossils will probably be found in Africa or Indonesia, where our cousins the great apes live; and will see how his book linked geology with archaeology, now becoming much more careful and scientific. This volume came from the British Museum with the Natural History collections when the Natural History Museum was opened under Richard Owen’s charge in 1881—one of the few books to be transferred. It was therefore one of those deposited under the Copyright Act in the national collection. Durham, October 2002 1 C.Lyell, Principles of Geology, intr. M.Rudwick, Lehre: Cramer, 1970. 2 F.Burckhardt et al., The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 10, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 378. 3 L.G.Wilson, Sir Charles Lyell’s Scientific Journals on the Species Question, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970. 4 H.Falconer, Palaeontological Memoirs and Notes, ed. C.Murchison, London: Hardwicke, 1868, vol. 2, pp. 592–631. 5 J.Prestwich, Collected Papers on Some Controverted Questions of Geology, London: Macmillan, 1895, pp. 1–80. 6 M.J.S.Rudwick, The Great Devonian Controversy: the Shaping of Scientific Knowledge among Gentlemanly Specialists, Chicago, 111.: Chicago University Press, 1985, esp. pp. 418–26.
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