[72] "It was not until January 1832, that the second volume of the _Principles_ was published, when it was received with as much favour as the first had been. It related more especially to the changes in the organic world, while the former volume had treated mainly of the inorganic forces of nature. Singularly enough, some of the points which were seized on by his great fellow-labourer Murchison for his presidential address to this Society in 1832, as subjects for felicitation, are precisely those which the candid mind of Lyell, ever ready to attach the full value to discoveries or arguments from time to time brought forward, even when in opposition to his own views, ultimately found reason to modify. We can never, I think, more highly appreciate Sir Charles Lyell's freshness of mind, his candour and love of truth, than when we compare certain portions of the first edition of the _Principles_ with those which occupy the same place in the last, and trace the manner in which his judicial intellect was eventually led to conclusions diametrically opposed to those which he originally held. To those acquainted only with the latest editions of the _Principles_, and with his _Antiquity of Man_, it may sound almost ironical in Murchison to have written, 'I cannot avoid noticing the clear and impartial manner in which the untenable parts of the dogmas concerning the alteration and transmutation of species and genera are refuted, and how satisfactorily the author confirms the great truth of the recent appearance of man upon our planet.' "By the work (_Principles of Geology_, vol. iii.), as a whole, was dealt the most telling blow that had ever fallen upon those to whom it appears 'more philosophical to speculate on the possibilities of the past than patiently to explore the realities of the present,' while the earnest and careful endeavour to reconcile the former indications of change with the evidence of gradual mutation now in progress, or _which may be_ in progress, received its greatest encouragement. The doctrines which Hutton and Playfair had held and taught assumed new and more vigorous life as better principles were explained by their eminent successor, and were supported by arguments which, as a whole, were incontrovertible."--Annual Address, President of Geological Society, 1876. "But, as Sir Roderick Murchison has long ago proved, there are parts of the record which are singularly complete, and in those parts we have the proof of creation without any indication of development. The Silurian rocks, as regards oceanic life, are perfect and abundant in the forms they have preserved. _Yet there are no fish._ The Devonian age followed tranquilly and without a break, and in the Devonian sea, suddenly, fish appear, appear in shoals, and in form of the highest and most perfect type."--The Duke of Argyll, _Primeval Man_, p. 45, London, 1869.