e
inadequacy of existing causes[22].'

And Sedgwick at Cambridge was no less firmly opposed to evolutionary
doctrine, eloquently declaiming at all times against the unscriptural
tenets of the Huttonians.

I cannot better illustrate the complete neglect at that time by leading
geologists in this country of the Huttonian teaching than by pointing to
the Report drawn up in 1833, by Conybeare, for the British Association,
on 'The Progress, Actual State and Ulterior Prospects of Geological
Science[23].' This valuable memoir of 47 pages opens with a sketch of
the history of the science, in which the chief Italian, French and
German investigators are referred to, but the name of Hutton is not even
mentioned!

And if positive evidence is required of the contempt which the early
geologists felt for Hutton and his teachings, it will be found in the
same author's introduction to that classical work, the _Outlines of
Geology_ (1822), in which he says of Hutton, after praising his views
on granite veins and "trap rocks":--

'The wildness of many of his theoretical views, however, went
far to counterbalance the utility of the additional facts which
he collected from observation. He who could perceive in geology
nothing but the _ordinary_ operation of actual causes, carried
on in the same manner through infinite ages, without the trace
of a beginning or the prospect of an end, must have surveyed
them through the medium of a preconceived hypothesis alone[24].'

John Playfair, the brilliant author of the _Illustrations of the
Huttonian Theory_, died in 1819; under happier conditions his able work
might have done for Inorganic Evolution what his great master failed to
accomplish; but the dead weight of prejudice and the dread of anything
that seemed to savour of infidelity was, at the time of the great
European struggle against revolutionary France, too great to be removed
even by his lucid statements and eloquent advocacy. James Hall and
Leonard Horner, two faithful disciples of Hutton, who had joined the
infant Geological Society, forsook it early, the former leaving it on
account of the quarrel with the Royal Society, the latter retaining his
fellowship and interest, but going to live at Edinburgh. Greenough, 'The
Objector General,' as he was called, was left, fanatically opposing any
attempt to stem the current that had set so strongly in favour of
Wernerism and Neptunism, and the Catastrophic doctri