Lyell's contemporaries were not without some inkling of his
esoteric doctrine. Whewell's 'History of the Inductive
Sciences,' whatever its philosophical value, is always worth
reading and always interesting, if under no other aspect than
that of an evidence of the speculative limits within which a
highly-placed divine might, at that time, safely range at will.
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. Are these new species created by
the production, at long intervals, of an offspring different in
species from the parents? Or are the species so created produced
without parents? Are they gradually evolved from some embryo
substance? Or do they suddenly start from the ground, as in the
creation of the poet?...

"Some selection of one of these forms of the hypothesis, rather
than the others, with evidence for the selection, is requisite to
entitle us to place it among the known causes of change, which in
this chapter we are considering. The bare conviction that a
creation of species has taken place, whether once or many times,
so long as it is unconnected with our organical sciences, is a
tenet of Natural Theology rather than of Physical Philosophy."
(Whewell's 'History,' volume iii. page 639-640 (Edition 2,
1847.))