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plistic idea that uniformity triumphed by fieldwork, then we will never
understand how fact and theory interact with social context, and we will
never grasp the biases in our own thinking (for we will simply designate our
cherished beliefs as true by nature's dictates). Moreover, I have a particular
reason, in the context of this topic, for fulminating against cardboard history.
Once we recover Lyell's substantive objection to intelligible and intelligent
catastrophism, we recognize that the real debate was not dogma versus
fieldwork, but a conflict between rival empirics rooted in the theme of this
book—a conflict of metaphor between time's cycle and time's arrow. Lyell
was not the white knight of truth and fieldwork, but a purveyor of a
fascinating and particular theory rooted in the steady state of time's cycle. He
tried by rhetoric to equate this substantive theory with rationality and
rectitude—and he largely triumphed. Thus, we cannot understand the
importance of time's arrow and time's cycle in establishing our view of time
and process until we break through this most enveloping of all cardboard
histories. It shouldn't be difficult; cardboard is pretty flimsy stuff.
Lyell's Rhetorical Triumph:
The Miscasting of Catastrophism
The Enigma of Agassiz's Marginalia
Louis Agassiz, the great Swiss scientist who made a home at Harvard and
built the museum that I now inhabit, was a garden variety catastrophist. He
developed the theory of continental glaciation, but advocated a global ice
cover extirpating all life, with subsequent divine recreation. In the dichotomy
that Lyell erected, Agassiz could only be an implacable opponent.
About ten years ago, I discovered Agassiz's copy of Lyell's Principles in the
open stacks of our museum library. It contained some fascinating marginalia,
incomprehensible if Lyell's great dichotomy accurately represents the
geological struggles of his age. Agassiz penciled three comments in French
on the margins of Lyell's preface
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