CHAPTER VI.

THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT ACCORDING TO LYELL AND DARWIN.

Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology.—His Natural History of the Earth’s Development.—Origin of the Greatest Effects through the Multiplication of the Smallest Causes.—Unlimited Extent of Geological Periods.—Lyell’s Refutation of Cuvier’s History of Creation.—The Establishment of the Uninterrupted Connection of Historical Development by Lyell and Darwin.—Biographical Notice of Charles Darwin.—His Scientific Works.—His Theory of Coral Reefs.—Development of the Theory of Selection.—A Letter of Darwin’s.—The Contemporaneous Appearance of Darwin’s and Alfred Wallace’s Theory of Selection.—Darwin’s Study of Domestic Animals and Cultivated Plants.—Andreas Wagner’s Notions as to the Special Creation of Cultivated Organisms for the good of Man.—The Tree of Knowledge in Paradise.—Comparison between Wild and Cultivated Organisms.—Darwin’s Study of Domestic Pigeons.—Importance of Pigeon Breeding.—Common Descent of all Races of Pigeons 125