Quote#Nature
We shall now conclude our remarks on the opinions entertained before…
Quote byCharles Lyell · 1797–1875
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Chpt.2, p. 22.
English (original)
We shall now conclude our remarks on the opinions entertained before the Christian era... the observation of the present course of nature presented too many proofs of alterations continually in progress on the earth to allow philosophers to believe that nature was in a state of rest or that the surface had remained and would continue to remain unaltered.
— Charles Lyell
More from Charles Lyell
the extension of the sea had been greater at some former periods
Pallas, in more recent times, has drawn the same inference.
important changes had taken place
in the form of the coasts of Asia, and
The first who endeavored to draw a clear line of demarcation between these distinct departments, was Hutton, who declared that geology was in no ways concerned with 'questions as to the origin of things.
This doctrine, it is true, had been laid down in terms almost equally explicit by Strabo, to explain the occurrence of fossil shells in the interior of continents, and to that geographer, and other writers of antiquity, Hooke frequently …