Hitherto, no rival hypothesis has been proposed as a substitute for the doctrine of transmutation; for 'independent creation,' as it is often termed,…

- Charles Lyell

In the course of this short tour, I became convinced that we must turn to the New World if we wish to see in perfection the oldest monuments of the e…

- Charles Lyell

Millions of our race are now supported by lands situated where deep seas once prevailed in earlier ages. In many districts not yet occupied by man, l…

- Charles Lyell

It is probable that a greater number of monuments of the skill and industry of man will, in the course of the ages, be collected together in the bed …

- Charles Lyell

It was a profound saying of Wilhelm Humboldt, that 'Man is man only by means of speech, but in order to invent speech he must be already man.'

- Charles Lyell

In attempting to explain geological phenomena, the bias has always been on the wrong side; there has always been a disposition to reason á priori on …

- Charles Lyell

The earth's becoming at a particular period the residence of human beings, was an era in the moral, not in the physical world, that our study and con…

- Charles Lyell

It must have appeared almost as improbable to the earlier geologists, that the laws of earthquakes should one day throw light on the origin of mounta…

- Charles Lyell

Never was there a dogma more calculated to foster indolence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity, than the assumption of the discordance between …

- Charles Lyell