Sir Charles Lyell

Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875). Scottish geologist and paleontologist. Gave the Pliocene Epoch its name. Established uniformitarianism as a scientific principle. Lyell was a friend and supporter of Charles Darwin, although he never fully accepted Darwin's theory.

Lyell, however, strongly influenced Darwin's ideas. In particular, Darwin's reading of Lyell's Principles of Geology prompted him to think of evolution as a slow process in which small changes gradually accumulate over immense spans of time. In this founding document of modern geology, Lyell emphasized natural law. It makes sense, he said, to assume that geological processes acting in the past were much the same as those we see today -- forces such as sedimentation in rivers, erosion by wind, or deposition of ash and lava by volcanic eruptions. In emphasizing these natural processes, he undermined the claims of earlier geologists many of whom had a distinct tendency to explain geological formations in terms of biblical floods. In the same way, Darwin constructed an explanation of the origin of living things in terms of natural processes.