This document summarizes Chapter 1 of Principles of Geology by Sir Charles Lyell. It defines geology as the science that investigates the successive changes in nature, both organic and inorganic, and seeks to understand the causes and effects of these changes. It notes that geology, like history, provides insight by comparing the present and past. It also states that an ideal geologist, like an historian, would be well-versed in many related fields of natural science to better understand the evidence of past events and draw correct conclusions.

1. Principles of Geology, Being an
Attempt to Explain the Former
Changes of the Earth's Surface, by
Reference to Causes Now in
Operation
Sir Charles Lyell, Gérard Paul Deshayes
John Murray
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Created by Jennifer Wall – Last synced October 18, 2016
Chapter
Geology is the science which investigates the successive
changes that have taken, place in the organic and
inorganic kingdoms of nature ; it enquires into the causes
of these changes, and the influence which they have exerted
in modify ing the surface and external structure of our
planet.
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2. When we study history, we obtain a more pro found insight
into human nature, by instituting a comparison between
the present and former states of society.
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Yet the com mercial prosperity, and numerical strength of
a nation, may now be mainly dependant on the local
distribution of fuel determined by that ancient state of
things.
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Geology is intimately related to almost all the physical
sciences, as is history to the moral. An historian should, if
possible, be at once profoundly acquainted with ethics,
politics, jurisprudence, the military art, theology ; in a
word, with all branches of knowledge, whereby any insight
into human affairs, or into the moral and intellectual
nature of man, can be ob tained. It
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It would be no less desirable that a geologist should be well
versed in chemistry, natural philosophy, mineralogy,
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zoology, comparative anatomy, botany ; in short, in every 3

3. science relating to organic and inorganic nature.
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With these accomplishments the historian and geologist
would rarely fail to draw correct and philosophical
conclusions from the various monuments transmitted to
them of former occurrences. They would know to what
combination of causes analogous effects were referrible,
and they would often be enabled to supply by inference,
information concerning many events unrecorded in the
defective archives of former ages. But the brief duration of
human life, and our limited powers, are so far from per
mitting us to aspire to such extensive acquisitions, that
excel lence even in one department is within the reach of
few, and those individuals most effectually promote the
general progress, who concentrate their thoughts on a
limited portion of the field of inquiry. As it is necessary that
the historian and the cultivators of moral or political
science should reciprocally aid each other, so the geologist
and those who study natural his tory or physics stand in
equal need of mutual assistance.
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