Quote#World
That there also had been a progressive advance of the organic world…
Quote byCharles Lyell · 1797–1875
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man (1863), Ch.20, p. 390-391.
English (original)
that there also had been a progressive advance of the organic world from the earliest to the latest times, from beings of the simplest to those of more and more complex structure and from the lowest instincts up to the highest, and, finally, from brute intelligence to the reasoning powers of Man.
— Charles Lyell
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the extension of the sea had been greater at some former periods
Pallas, in more recent times, has drawn the same inference.
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important changes had taken place
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 …