Charles Lyell, Historian of Time's Cycle - Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time - page 127

the cardboard version—men usually depicted as enemies of modern science.
I have already demonstrated in Chapter 2 that Burner's strict adherence to
uniformity of law not only defined his approach to the earth but also, and
ironically, directly inspired the fanciful conjectures that have set his poor
reputation in modern textbooks. Burnet accepted the Bible as literal truth. If
he had been willing to admit miracles as agents of earthly change, his
explanations would have been no more curious than those of Genesis. But
Burnet was committed, by uniformity of law, to rendering even the most
elaborate of biblical tales by the workings of Newtonian physics—and such
an effort required some mighty tall and fancy conjectures about sources of
water and formation of topography. Still, Burnet refused, on methodological
grounds, to permit divine creation of flood-waters, and even used the
metaphor of Lyell's most famous passage (see page 111) to defend the
uniformity of law: "They say in short, that God Almighty created waters on
purpose to make the deluge . . . And this, in a few words, is the whole
account of the business. This is to cut the knot when we cannot loose
it" (Burnet, 33).
The French geologist Alcide d'Orbigny usually wins a textbook nod as most
outlandish of catastrophists among Lyell's contemporaries. He identified
some twenty-eight episodes of global paroxysm, marked by volcanoes, tidal
waves, and effusion of poison gases, and leading to the annihilation of life.
Yet d'Orbigny embraced the actualist principle of uniformity of process. He
recommended that inquiry always begin with modern processes: "Natural
causes now in action have always existed . . . To have a satisfactory
explanation of all past phenomena, the study of present phenomena is
indispensable" (1849-1852, 71). And he followed Agassiz in praising Lyell
for this proper emphasis (though he reserved greatest honors for a fellow
countryman): "The happy thought that we should explain the earth's strata by
causes now acting belongs entirely to Mr. Constant Prevost who first
established it in his geological system. Science owes much to Mr. Lyell for
the development of this system, supported by copious research as wise as it is
ingenious" (1849-1852, 71).