"It has become customary to read in... In Memoriam not only organic evolution, but also the geology of... Lyell. Because the relevant sections were written... long before Darwin's Origin of the Species... some literary critics have interpreted these passages as an anticipation of the theory of organic evolution by the intuitive genius of a poet, before the analytical mind of Darwin dared to arrive at the same conclusion. "How did the poet come to forestall the scientists in their own game?" one critic asks."