Lectures on Evolution | Page 5

bodies, however great they may be, yet sooner or later right
themselves; and that the solar system possesses a self-adjusting power
by which these aberrations are all brought back to a mean condition.
Hutton imagined that the like might be true of terrestrial changes;
although no one recognised more clearly than he the fact that the dry
land is being constantly washed down by rain and rivers and deposited
in the sea; and that thus, in a longer or shorter time, the inequalities of
the earth's surface must be levelled, and its high lands brought down to
the ocean. But, taking into account the internal forces of the earth,
which, upheaving the sea-bottom give rise to new land, he thought that
these operations of degradation and elevation might compensate each
other; and that thus, for any assignable time, the general features of our
planet might remain what they are. And inasmuch as, under these
circumstances, there need be no limit to the propagation of animals and
plants, it is clear that the consistent working out of the uniformitarian
idea might lead to the conception of the eternity of the world. Not that I
mean to say that either Hutton or Lyell held this conception-- assuredly
not; they would have been the first to repudiate it. Nevertheless, the
logical development of some of their arguments tends directly towards
this hypothesis.
The second hypothesis supposes that the present order of things, at
some no very remote time, had a sudden origin, and that the world,
such as it now is, had chaos for its phenomenal antecedent. That is the
doctrine which you will find stated most fully and clearly in the
immortal poem of John Milton--the English Divina
Commedia-- "Paradise Lost." I believe it is largely to the influence
of that remarkable work, combined with the daily teachings to which
we have all listened in our childhood, that this hypothesis owes its
general wide diffusion as one of the current beliefs of English-speaking
people. If you turn to the seventh book of "Paradise Lost," you will find
there stated the hypothesis to which I refer, which is briefly this: That
this visible universe of ours came into existence at no great distance of

time from the present; and that the parts of which it is composed made
their appearance, in a certain definite order, in the space of six natural
days, in such a manner that, on the first of these days, light appeared;
that, on the second, the firmament, or sky, separated the waters above,
from the waters beneath the firmament; that, on the third day, the
waters drew away from the dry land, and upon it a varied vegetable life,
similar to that which now exists, made its appearance; that the fourth
day was signalised by the apparition of the sun, the stars, the moon, and
the planets; that, on the fifth day, aquatic animals originated within the
waters; that, on the sixth day, the earth gave rise to our four- footed
terrestrial creatures, and to all varieties of terrestrial animals except
birds, which had appeared on the preceding day; and, finally, that man
appeared upon the earth, and the emergence of the universe from chaos
was finished. Milton tells us, without the least ambiguity, what a
spectator of these marvellous occurrences would have witnessed. I
doubt not that his poem is familiar to all of you, but I should like to
recall one passage to your minds, in order that I may be justified in
what I have said regarding the perfectly concrete, definite, picture of
the origin of the animal world which Milton draws. He says:--
"The sixth, and of creation last, arose With evening harp and matin,
when God said, 'Let the earth bring forth soul living in her kind, Cattle
and creeping things, and beast of the earth. Each in their kind!' The
earth obeyed, and, straight Opening her fertile womb, teemed at a birth
Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms, Limbed and full-grown.
Out of the ground uprose, As from his lair, the wild beast, where he
wons In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den; Among the trees in pairs
they rose, they walked; The cattle in the fields and meadows green;
Those rare and solitary; these in flocks Pasturing at once, and in broad
herds upsprung. The grassy clods now calved; now half appears The
tawny lion, pawing to get free His hinder parts--then springs, as broke
from bonds, And rampant shakes his brinded mane; the ounce, The
libbard, and the tiger, as the mole Rising, the crumbled earth above
them threw In hillocks; the swift stag from underground Bore up his
branching head; scarce from his mould Behemoth, biggest born of earth,
upheaved His vastness; fleeced the flocks and bleating rose As plants;
ambiguous