Charles Lyell, Historian of Time's Cycle - Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time - page 116

to the third London edition of 1834, inscribed by the author to "Dr. Agassiz à
Neuchâtel" (Agassiz and Lyell were close personal friends, whatever their
professional disagreements).
The first two comments record just what we would expect from a
catastrophist opponent. Agassiz first discusses the range in variation among
modern causes, arguing by implication that Lyell had erred in ascribing large-
scale events of the past to the accumulation of small, slow changes.
Maintaining that many modern causes are substantial and abrupt, he pooh-
poohs Lyell's claim that today's processes form a unitary set: "These causes
are identical as the cause that produces good weather is identical with the
cause that produces the tempest. But it never comes to anyone's mind to array
them in the same category. There have always been different categories of
causes."
The second comment extends this argument into the past and attacks a
cardinal premise of uniformity: that phenomena of large scope arise as the
summation of small changes. "But these changes, since they don't always
have the same intensity in our own day, could not have so worked in former
times. They have therefore differed at all times from considerable changes
that never result from the addition of small changes."
So far, so good. But we then come to his summary statement, penciled on the
blank left-hand page facing the beginning of Lyell's summary (Figure 4.3):
"Les principes de Geologic de Mr. Lyell sont certainement 1'ouvrage le plus
important qui ait para sur 1'ensemble de cette science, depuis qu'elle merite
ce nom" (Mr. Lyell's Principles of Geology is certainly the most important
work that has appeared on the whole of this science since it has merited this
name). The statement is clearly in Agassiz's hand and represents his own
comment, not the copied words of another reviewer (see Gould, 1979). How,
after all Lyell's disparaging rhetoric, could a catastrophist praise him so
highly? Something is very wrong. Either Agassiz was not a true catastrophist
(but we can find none better), or he was trying to ingratiate himself (but not
in private jottings), or he was either inconsistent or sarcastic (though he
exhibited