Charles Lyell, Historian of Time's Cycle - Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time - page 153

investigates the successive changes that have taken place in the organic and
inorganic kingdoms of nature" (I, 1). The statement seems so innocuous, but
search far and wide in Hutton and you will never find its like; major
upheavals in thought often sneak past our gaze because their later success
makes them seem so obvious.
Lyell's first words show a profound understanding of both the meaning and
the joy of history. He begins by acknowledging the distinctive character of
historical inquiry—the explanation of present phenomena as contingent
results of a past that might have been different, not as predictable products of
nature's laws. The original historical prod may be tiny and forgotten, but
results cascade to a magnitude that often seems to belie their origin:
We often discover with surprise, on looking back into the chronicles of
nations, how the fortune of some battle has influenced the fate of millions of
our contemporaries, when it has long been forgotten by the mass of the
population. With this remote event we may find inseparably connected the
geographical boundaries of a great state, the language now spoken by the
inhabitants, their peculiar manners, laws, and religious opinions. But far
more astonishing and unexpected are the connexions brought to light, when
we carry back our researches into the history of nature. (1,2)
A static analysis of current function may yield some insight, but consider the
expansion provided by historical context:
A comparative anatomist may derive some accession of knowledge from the
bare inspection of the remains of an extinct quadruped, but the relic throws
much greater light upon his own science, when he is informed to what
relative era it belonged, what plants and animals were its contemporaries, in
what degree of latitude it once existed, and other historical details. (I, 3)
Recognizing the importance of taxonomy, Lyell sought to rank geology
properly among the sciences. He refused to follow several predecessors
because they had placed geology with physical sciences