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Updated: June 8, 2025
Thus, upon the whole, it may be said, without danger of reasonable dispute, that as the argument from Order has hitherto derived its immense weight entirely from the fact that Intelligence appeared to be the one and only cause sufficient to produce the observed integration of the cosmos, this immense weight has now been completely counterpoised by the demonstration that other causes of a strictly physical kind must have been instrumental, if not themselves alone sufficient, to produce this integration, So that, just as in the case of Astronomy the demonstration of the one natural principle of gravity was sufficient to classify under one physical explanation several observed facts which many persons had previously attributed to supernatural causes; and just as in the more complex science of Geology the demonstration of the one principle of uniformitarianism was sufficient to explain, without the aid of supernaturalism, a still greater number of facts; and, lastly, just as in the case of the still more complex science of Biology the demonstration of the one principle of natural selection was sufficient to marshal under one scientific, or natural, hypothesis an almost incalculable number of facts which were previously explained by the metaphysical hypothesis of supernatural design; so in the science which includes all other sciences, and which we may term the science of Cosmology, I assert with confidence that in the one principle of the persistence of force we have a demonstrably harmonising principle, whereby all the facts within our experience admit of being collocated under one natural explanation, without there being the smallest reason to attribute these facts to any supernatural cause.
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.
For consistent uniformitarianism postulates evolution as much in the organic as in the inorganic world. The origin of a new species by other than ordinary agencies would be a vastly greater "catastrophe" than any of those which Lyell successfully eliminated from sober geological speculation. In fact, no one was better aware of this than Lyell himself.
That great though incomplete work, "The Theory of the Earth," seems to me to be one of the most remarkable contributions to geology which is recorded in the annals of the science. So far as the not-living world is concerned, uniformitarianism lies there, not only in germ, but in blossom and fruit.
Still less is there any necessary antagonism between either of these doctrines and that of Evolution, which embraces all that is sound in both Catastrophism and Uniformitarianism, while it rejects the arbitrary assumptions of the one and the, as arbitrary, limitations of the other.
This view was held more or less distinctly, sometimes combined with the notion of recurrent cycles of change, in ancient times; and its influence has been felt down to the present day. It is worthy of remark that it is a hypothesis which is not inconsistent with the doctrine of Uniformitarianism, with which geologists are familiar.
There was a time when catastrophism might, pre-eminently, have claimed the title of "British popular geology;" and assuredly it has yet many adherents, and reckons among its supporters some of the most honoured members of this Society. By UNIFORMITARIANISM, I mean especially, the teaching of Hutton and of Lyell.
So suggestive were all these observations that Lyell, the admitted leader of the geological world, after reading Darwin's citations, felt able to drop his own crass explanation of the introduction of species and adopt the transmutation hypothesis, thus rounding out the doctrine of uniformitarianism to the full proportions in which Lamarck had conceived it half a century before.
That such difference of form and power once existed is a necessary part of the doctrine of evolution. UNIFORMITARIANISM, on the other hand, has with equal justice insisted upon a practically unlimited bank of time, ready to discount any quantity of hypothetical paper.
That such difference of form and power once existed is a necessary part of the doctrine of evolution. UNIFORMITARIANISM, on the other hand, has with equal justice insisted upon a practically unlimited bank of time, ready to discount any quantity of hypothetical paper.
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