comprehension; it remained for Darwin to accumulate proof that
there is no break between the incoming and the outgoing species,
that they are the work of evolution, and not of special
creation...

"I had certainly prepared the way in this country, in six
editions of my work before the 'Vestiges of Creation' appeared in
1842 [1844], for the reception of Darwin's gradual and insensible
evolution of species."--'Life and Letters,' Letter to Haeckel,
volume ii. page 436. November 23, 1868.) If one reads any of
the earlier editions of the 'Principles' carefully (especially by
the light of the interesting series of letters recently published
by Sir Charles Lyell's biographer), it is easy to see that, with
all his energetic opposition to Lamarck, on the one hand, and to
the ideal quasi-progressionism of Agassiz, on the other, Lyell,
in his own mind, was strongly disposed to account for the
origination of all past and present species of living things by
natural causes. But he would have liked, at the same time, to
keep the name of creation for a natural process which he imagined
to be incomprehensible.

In a letter addressed to Mantell (dated March 2, 1827), Lyell
speaks of having just read Lamarck; he expresses his delight at
Lamarck's theories, and his personal freedom from any objection
based on theological grounds. And though he is evidently alarmed
at the pithecoid origin of man involved in Lamarck's doctrine, he
observes:--

"But, after all, what changes species may really undergo! How
impossible will it be to distinguish and lay down a line, beyond