Very fortunately at this juncture, Lockhart, who was in the habit of attending the Geological Society and listening to the debates (for as he used to say to his friends whom he took with him from the Athenaeum, 'though I don't care for geology, yet I do like to see the fellows fight') thought of Scrope. Although he had practically retired from the active work of the Geological Society at this time, Scrope was known as an effective writer, and, happily for the progress of science, he undertook the review of Lyell's book.
Although, of course, Lyell had no voice in the choice of a reviewer for the Principles, yet he could not fail to rejoice in the fact that it had fallen to his friend, who so strongly sympathised with his views, to introduce it to the public. While the book was being printed and the review of it was in preparation, a number of letters passed between Lyell and Scrope, and the latter, before his death, gave me the carefully treasured epistles of his friend, with the drafts of some of his replies. These letters, some of which have been published, throw much light on the difficulties with which Lyell had to contend, and the manner in which he strove to meet them.
As we have already seen, many of the leaders in the Geological Society at that day besides being strongly inclined to Wernerian and Cataclysmal views, had an honest, however mistaken, dread lest geological research should lead to results, apparently not in harmony with the accounts given in Genesis of the Creation and the Flood. Lyell, as this correspondence shows, was most anxious to avoid exciting either scientific or theological prejudice. He wrote, 'I conceived the idea five or six years ago' (that is in 1824 or 5) that 'if ever the Mosaic geology could be set down without giving offence, it would be in an historical sketch[52],' and 'I was afraid to point the moral ... about Moses. Perhaps I should have been tenderer about the Koran[53].' He further says 'full half of my history and comments was cut out, and even many facts, because either I, or Stokes, or Broderip, felt that it was anticipating twenty or thirty years of the march of honest feeling to declare it undisguisedly[54].'
Under these circumstances the publication by Scrope of his two long notices of the Principles in the Review which was regarded as the champion of orthodoxy, was most opportune. A very clear sketch was given in these reviews of the leading facts and the general line of argument; and at the same time the allowing of prejudice or prepossession to influence the judgment on such questions was very gently deprecated[55].
But Scrope's reviews did not by any means consist of an indiscriminate advocacy of Lyell's views. In one respect—that of the great importance of subaerial action as contrasted with marine action—Scrope's views were at this time in advance of those of Lyell, and he called especial attention to the direct effects produced by rain in the earth-pillars of Botzen. These Lyell had not at the time seen, but took an early opportunity of visiting. Scrope, too, was naturally much more speculative in his modes of thought than Lyell, and argued for the probably greater intensity in past times of the agencies causing geological change, and for the legitimacy of discussing the mode of origin of the earth. Lyell, like Hutton, argued that he saw 'no signs of a beginning,' but his characteristic candour is shown when he wrote:—
'All I ask is, that at any given period of the past, don't stop enquiry, when puzzled, by a reference to a "beginning," which is all one with "another state of nature," as it appears to me. But there is no harm in your attacking me, provided you point out that it is the proof I deny, not the probability of a beginning[56].'
Lyell clearly foresaw the opposition with which his book would be met and wisely resolved not to be drawn into controversy. He wrote:—
'I daresay I shall not keep my resolution, but I will try to do it firmly, that when my book is attacked ... I will not go to the expense of time in pamphleteering. I shall work steadily on Vol. II, and afterwards, if the work succeeds, at edition 2, and I have sworn to myself that I will not go to the expense of giving time to combat in controversy. It is interminable work[57].'
In order to maintain this resolve, Lyell, the moment the last sheet of the volume was corrected, set off for a four months' tour in France and Spain. While absent from England, he heard little of what was going on in the scientific world; but, on his return, Lyell was told by Murray that in the three months before the Quarterly Review article appeared, 650 copies of the volume, out of the 1500 printed, had been sold, and he anticipated the disposal of many more, when the review came out. This expectation was realised and led to the issue of a second edition of the first volume, of larger size and in better type.
Lyell, from the first, had seen that it would be impossible to avoid the conclusion that the principles which he was advancing with respect to the inorganic world must be equally applicable to the organic world. At first he only designed to touch lightly on this subject, in the concluding chapters of his first volume, and to devote the second volume to the application of his principles to the interpretation of the geological record. He, however, found it impossible to include the chapters on changes in the organic world in the first volume and then decided to make them the opening portion of the second volume.