ABSTRACT
The value of contemporary caricatures for the understanding of political and social history has long been recognized by general historians. The publication of the Principles of Geology by Charles Lyell between 1830 and 1833 provoked a far-reaching discussion among British geologists about the fundamental methods and theories of their science. The traditional historiography of “conflict” between science and religion in this period fails to account adequately for some of the most important figures in the opposition to Charles Lyell's geological system. There are hints in Henry Thomas De la Beche's correspondence, and in Charles Lyell's, that there was some personal antipathy between them. The centrality of Charles Lyell's steady-state theories as a target for Henry Thomas De la Beche's criticism will be no surprise to those Charles Lyell scholars who take seriously the many critical published reviews and unpublished comments on the Principles.
