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The only secondary cause... which has, as yet, been even conjecturally brought forward, to explain how, in the ordinary course of nature, a new specific form may be generated is, as Lamarck declared, 'variation,' and this has been rendered a far more probable hypothesis by the way in which Natural Selection is shown to give intensity and permanency to certain varieties.

— Charles Lyell The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863)

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More quotes by Charles Lyell

In a rude state of society all great calamities are regarded by the people as judgments of God on the wickedness of man.

Principles of Geology (1832)

Thus community in embryonic structure reveals community of descent, however much the structure of the adult may have been modified.

The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863)

It will be necessary to dwell on futile reasoning and visionary hypothesis because the most extravagant systems were often invented or controverted by men of acknowledged talent.

Principles of Geology (1832)

But exactly in proportion as the completeness of the record and our knowledge of it are overrated, in that same degree are many progressionists unconscious of the goal towards which they are drifting.

The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863)

Strabo rejects this theory as insufficient to account for all the phenomena, and he proposes one of his own, the profoundness of which modern geologists are only beginning to appreciate.

Principles of Geology (1832)

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