told me, shortly afterwards, how Huxley had sat by his
bedside and "repeated the whole lecture to him.")

Darwin's generous nature seems often to have made him experience a fear
lest he should do less than justice to his "dear old master," and to the
influence that the "Principles of Geology" had in moulding his mind. In
1845 he wrote to Lyell, "I have long wished, not so much for your sake,
as for my own feelings of honesty, to acknowledge more plainly than by
mere reference, how much I geologically owe you. Those authors, however,
who like you, educate people's minds as well as teach them special
facts, can never, I should think, have full justice done them except by
posterity, for the mind thus insensibly improved can hardly perceive
its own upward ascent." ("L.L." I. pages 337-8.) In another letter, to
Leonard Horner, he says: "I always feel as if my books came half out of
Lyell's brain, and that I never acknowledge this sufficiently." ("M.L."
II. page 117.) Darwin's own most favourite book, the "Narrative of the
Voyage", was dedicated to Lyell in glowing terms; and in the "Origin of
Species" he wrote of "Lyell's grand work on the "Principles of
Geology", which the future historian will recognise as having produced a
revolution in Natural Science." "What glorious good that work has done"
he fervently exclaims on another occasion. ("L.L." I. page 342.)

To the very end of his life, as all who were in the habit of talking
with Darwin can testify, this sense of his indebtedness to Lyell
remained with him. In his "Autobiography", written in 1876, the year
after Lyell's death, he spoke in the warmest terms of the value to him
of the "Principles" while on the voyage and of the aid afforded to him
by Lyell on his return to England. ("L.L." I. page 62.) But the year
before his own death, Darwin felt constrained to return to the subject
and to place on record a final appreciation--one as honourable to the
writer as it is to his lost friend:

"I saw more of Lyell than of any other man, both before and after
my marriage. His mind was characterised, as it appeared to me, by
clearness, caution, sound judgment, and a good deal of originality. When
I made any remark to him on Geology, he never rested until he saw the
whole case clearly, and often made me see it more clearly than I had
done before. He would advance all possible objections to my suggestion,
and even after these were exhausted would remain long dubious. A second
ch