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⁴ Thus, writing of an episode in the history of geology, Bonney writes, it ‘cannot be better summed up than in Lyell's own words’; see Bonney, , op. cit. (2), p. 80. Bonney's account of the history of geology is indeed nothing other than a précis of Lyell's first four chapters.Google Scholar

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⁹ Cf. Lyell, Principles, vol. i, heading to chapter I. There has been almost no historiographical debate over the principles and practice of the history of geology. In this respect, Schneer, C. J. (ed.), Toward a history of geology (Cambridge, Mass., 1969),Google Scholar

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¹⁴ As is well emphasized in [Scrope, G. P.], Review of Charles Lyell, Principles of geology, Quarterly review, xliii (1830), 411–69.Google Scholar

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Charles Raven noted that Lyell's scathing treatment of the seventeenth-century physicotheologians revealed his own unconscious ambiguities on the subject; see his John Ray, naturalist (Cambridge, 1950), p. 441.Google Scholar

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²⁷ As well as being the episteme of savagery, catastrophism is also symptomatic of moral decay and failure of nerve amongst the more civilized. Cf. Principles i. 10. Lyell uses Prichard's work on Egyptian mythology to suggest that this kind of thinking, in whichever epoch, is no more advanced than die idea of a ‘mundane egg’. I owe this point to Michael Neve. Compare the comments of E. H. Carr on the functions of cyclical catastrophist thinking in his What is history? (Harmondsworth, 1967), pp. 43–6.Google Scholar

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³⁶ He writes: Lazzoro Moro. This mistake is corrected in subsequent editions, unlike many of the errors of fact.Google Scholar

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⁴¹ Though he does discuss recent advances in geology in Principles, i. 71 f., i.e. at the end of chapter IV.Google Scholar

⁴² As is evident from Principles, i. chapter V, the purpose of which is to show how false consciousness on the subject of time and man continue to retard geology.Google Scholar

⁴³ Raspe revived and popularized Hooke (using Hooke as a mouthpiece for his own views). Generelli did the same for Moro and Playfair for Hutton.Google Scholar

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⁵⁷ For example, his rejection of vulgar Baconianism and his championing of the necessary role of theory; Principles, i. 71–2. Fitton's reviews in particular (op. cit [12]) had associated the progress of geology with Baconianism. Lyell's own reviews (see note 51) seek to redress the balance.Google Scholar

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