Lyell, Charles

LYELL, CHARLES. - Great geologist, b. at Kinnordy (Scotland) on 14 Nov. 1797, d. in London on 22 Feb. 1875. In 1830-33 he published the first edition of his course of lectures given at the Royal College of London, bearing the title Principles of Geology, in which the physical and biological phenomena and events of the past are identified with those exogenous and endogenous ones that currently occur on the surface of the earth (the law "of actual causes" or "of uniformitarianism", whose foundations were laid by Giovanni Arduino in 1775 and by Hutton in 1785). Other important publications concern his travels in Europe and in the United States. A particularly notable work is the one titled Elements of Geology (London 1838).

He was an apologist of evolution, to which he attributed a profound religious meaning: he admitted, in fact, "an action of the Most Wise First Cause, efficient, immediate, regular and permanent, but infinitely varied". "We cannot think that this world is a place of trial and moral cultivation for one of the lower animals, nor would any of these derive comfort and joy from faith in a future life. To man, on the other hand, this faith is granted, so conformable to his reason and answering to the religious sentiments impressed by nature in his heart. This doctrine tends to elevate him, up the scale of being, morally and spiritually..." (The geological evidences of the antiquity of man, etc., London 1863, p. 505).

Carmelo Maxia