by Kathryn Dinardo

Created on: February 26, 2009   Last Updated: March 06, 2009

Sir Charles Lyell's renown publication in 1830, The Principles of Geology, an attempt to explain the former changes in the Earth's surface by references to causes now in operation
(London, John Murray, 1830 volume 1) went into 12 publications and is known to have been sent to Charles Darwin during the second voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle (1831-1836). Of the book, Charles Darwin is quoted as saying:"The greatest merit of The Principles was that it altered the whole tone of one's mind..." The book is steeped in the uniformitarian philosophy that what has happened in the past can explain present conditions.

A contemporary of Darwin, Abraham Lincoln shares his date of birth. However, little attention has been focused on the formation of the ideas and philosophies of Lincoln as a scientist. Through analysis of the uniformitarian philosophies evident in Lincoln's speech: "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions" delivered in Springfield, Illinois in 1838 (Jennison, Keith The Essential Lincoln, New York, 1971) as well as examination of his efforts to succeed as a land surveyor (Sandburg, Carl. Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years
(New York, 1926), p 44-46, his pursuit of an appointment to the position of Commissioner of the General Land Office (Roy P. Baslor, editor, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume II (Letter to Joshua F. Speed, February 20, 1849) as well as the fact that a good majority of the scientists who took part in the formation of the original Act of Incorporation founding the National Academy of Sciences were either geologists, surveyors or had worked on the U.S. Coast Survey. (www.nasonline.org?site/PageServer?pagename=ABOUT_in corporation) It will be shown that, in all probability, both of these men read the work of Charles Lyell and their thoughts and ideas, expressed in two very different dynamics, share, in the background, the common thread of one popular scientific thinker of 19th century America.

Lincoln's speech, delivered in January 1838, is steeped in Uniformitarian philosophy drawing on events in American history and actions of the founders to explain the conditions of his time that affected slavery, unrest, mob actions as well as what he believed must be done to maintain civil liberty: "I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten, but that, like everything else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they

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