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Charles Lyell, Radical Actualism, and Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

W. Faye Cannon
W. Faye Cannon
Affiliation:
Department of the History of Science and Technology, National Museum of History and Technology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.G. 20560, U.S.A.
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Extract

This is a theoretical paper. A little theory goes a long way in history, for me; but it is good to collect as much as is feasible in one paper, so that gaps and inconsistencies can be noticed. I use ‘theory’ in the definite sense of a set of hypothetical statements such that deductions can be made and compared with data, facts, or generalizations obtained in some other way than as derivation from theory. Deductions need not always be rigorous, and there may be two or more ‘solutions’ obtainable, of which the scientist may choose one and discard the rest (for example, he may discard all ‘imaginary’ solutions). I am ignoring the differences between propositions, demonstrations, problems, and the like. Actually there must always be several statements, including rules of procedure, in the set; but often many are assumed and only the new or controversial one is stated as ‘the’ hypothesis of Mr X.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , July 1976 , pp. 104 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1976

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References

REFERENCES

1 I carefully avoid the term ‘hypothetico-deductive method’. It means different things to different authors, and may lead to stressing one or two hypothetical statements to the exclusion of the rest of the system. Thus Darwin's ‘natural selection’ is not one hypothesis, but a theory involving several statements.Google Scholar
2Bartholomew, Michael, ‘Lyell and evolution: an account of Lyell's response to the prospect of an evolutionary ancestry for man’, The British journal for the history of science, vi (1972–1973), 261–303.Google Scholar
3Bartholomew, Michael, p. 288.Google Scholar
4Hooykaas, Reyer, ‘The principle of uniformity in geology, biology and theology’, Journal of the transactions of the Victoria Institute, lxxxviii (1956), 101–16;Google Scholar
see also ‘The parallel between the history of the earth and the history of the animal world’, Archives Internationales d'histoire des sciences, x (1957), 3–18. Cf.Google Scholar
Cannon, W. F., ‘The bases of Darwin's achievement: a revaluation’, Victorian studies, v (1961), 116 (note 14), for my acknowledgement of Professor Hooykaas's priority.Google Scholar
5 Compare Hull, David, Darwin and his critics (Cambridge, Mass., 1973), p. 7,Google Scholar
with Cannon, W. F., ‘John Herschel and the idea ofscience’, Journal of the history of ideas, xxii (1961), 238. Hull then assigns a different role, that of follower, to John. Professor Hull informs me that the ‘correction’ was proposed by a zealous editor at a time when he was too busy to re-check my article.Google Scholar
6 [Mrs] Lyell, K. M. (ed.), Life, letters and journals of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart. (2 vols, London, 1881), 1. 269–70.Google Scholar
7Cannon, W. F., ‘Charles Lyell is permitted to speak for himself’, a paper given to the New England Conference on the History of Geology, 09 1967; consideration of the historical sketch is pp. 5–18; ‘polemical’, p. 2; ‘historical romance’, p. 17; ‘erroneous’, p. 44.Google Scholar
‘Erroneous historiographical tradition’ is from the ‘Abstract’ of my paper in Schneer, C. J. (ed.), Toward a history of geology (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), p. 79.Google Scholar
For a use of this conclusion, see Cannon, , op. cit. (4), pp. 109–34.Google Scholar
8Cannon, 1967, op. cit. (7), p. 42.Google Scholar
9Cannon, 1969, op. cit. (7), p. 79.Google Scholar
10Rudwick, M. J. S., ‘The strategy of Lyell's Principles of geology’, Isis, lxi (1970), 9(note 11) and 11 (note 19).Google Scholar
I do disagree with Rudwick on a point of emphasis: he uses my weakest word, ‘polemical’, and that is not strong enough for my final characterization of trie sketch; I used it for the Principles as a whole. A polemic, I take it, is a strong presentation of only one side of a case, but a fair one within that limit. So I now use the word ‘propaganda’ to indicate how the sketch is ‘erroneous’ or, if you prefer, fictional though based on real characters (‘historical romance’). 11 Rudwick, M. J. S., p. 32;Google Scholar
see also Rudwick, , ‘Uniformity and progression: reflections on the structure of geological theory in the age of Lyell’, in Roller, D. H. D. (ed.), Perspectives in the history of science and technology (Norman, Oklahoma, 1971), p. 225. The latter paper was given to a profesional symposium in 1969.Google Scholar
12Cannon, W. F., ‘The Uniformitarian-Catastrophist debate’, Isis, li (1960), 38–55, especially 50, 53, 55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13Cannon, , op. cit. (4), pp. 116–17.Google Scholar
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15Rudwick, 1971, op. cit. (11), p. 222.Google Scholar
16 My statements about Buckland are presented more fully in my article on William Buckland in Gillispie, C. C. (ed.), Dictionary of scientific biography (New York, 1970—in progress), ii. 566–72.Google Scholar
17 Personal communication from Dr Hodge.Google Scholar
18Rudwick, 1971, op. cit. (11), p. 221.Google Scholar
19Rudwick, , p. 224:Google Scholar
Lyell's ‘rigorous actualism … seems to have been governed less by consideration of methodological rigor than by a concern to demonstrate that geological processes were not declining in intensity’. In Rudwick, , op. cit. (10), p. 8, the author speaks of Lyell's ‘commitment to an extreme form of actualism, but this position does not differ qualitatively from that of his scientific opponents’.Google Scholar
20Lyell, , Principles of geology (2nd edn., 3 vols., London, 1832–1833), i. 179.Google Scholar
21Cannon, , op. cit. (4), pp. 110–11, 128–9.Google Scholar
22Lyell, , op. cit. (6), i. 467–8.Google Scholar
Lyell is thanking John Herschel for asserting a naturalistic origination of species in his letter to Lyell of 20 February 1836, an assertion which Lyell allowed Charles Babbage to make public. The Herschel letter is reprinted in full in Cannon, W. F., ‘The impact of Uniformitarianism: two letters from John Herschel to Charles Lyell, 1836–1837’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, cv (1961); see especially section 14, pp. 307–8.Google Scholar
23Rudwick, 1971, op. cit. (11), p. 225.Google Scholar
24Herschel, John, ‘Whewell on inductive sciences’, Quarterly review, lxviii (1841), 201.Google Scholar
25 My conclusions are therefore at odds with those of Ghiselin, Michael, in his The triumph of the Darwinian method (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969), on this and a few other points; see especially pp. 5, 12, and 15.Google Scholar
26 I use the term ‘vision’ for what Darwin actually needed to visualize, and asked his reader to visualize, in ‘Darwin's vision in On the origin of species’, in Levine, G. and Madden, W. (eds.), The art of Victorian prose (New York, 1968), pp. 154–76; see especially pp. 159–60, 163–4, 172–3. The article does not discuss the derivation from Humboldt. Of course, there was Humboldt in Lyell; Darwin read Humboldt before he read Lyell. My new phrase for the ‘vision’ is that Darwin visualized topographical principles at work in space and time. Perhaps ‘bio-topographical’ is justified to remind the reader that Humboldt's topography especially included organisms.Google Scholar
27 I do not see any evidence yet produced that would make me agree to the speculations in Ruse, Michael, ‘Darwin's debt to philosophy: an examination of the influence of the philosophical ideas of John F. W. Herschel and William Whewell on the development of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution’, Studies in history and philosophy of science, vi (1975), 159–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
28 Misunderstanding the word ‘perfect’ and similar terms is the weakness in the position of Limoges, Camille, La sélection naturelle (Paris, 1970), pp. 69–70.Google Scholar
He believes that Darwin's ‘profound originality’ comes from his attack on the traditional concept of ‘perfection’ of adaptation. But Darwin substantially accepts the ordinary concept and uses it between 1837 and 1840. Limoges's case might be that Lyell tends more towards ideal efficiency, and that his is the ‘traditional’ position. But Limoges wishes to include Paley, Buckland, and Sedgwick; see his ‘Darwinisme et adaptation’, Revue des questions scientiftques, cxli (1970), 353–74. These men are in the tradition which Darwin accepted and used on this point.Google Scholar
29 As given by Herbert, Sandra, ‘Darwin, Malthus, and selection’, Journal of the history of biology, iv (1971), 209. Note that actualism is a doctrine about forces. It does not require that a transmutation of species be observable, but that the forces—the excesses of population pressure—be observable. That is, as observable as any force is; since it is a hypothetical entity, a force is never ‘observable’ in the sense in which a stone is.CrossRefGoogle Scholar