ned or which well could be entertained respecting this
history. The first was to assume that phenomena of nature similar to
those exhibited by the world at present had always existed; in fact
that the universe had existed from all eternity in what might be
termed, broadly, its present condition. The second hypothesis was that
the present condition of things had had only a limited duration, and
that, at some period of the past, what we now know came into existence
without any relation of natural causation to an antecedent state. The
third hypothesis also assumed that the present condition of things had
had a limited duration, but it supposed that that condition had been
derived by natural processes from an antecedent condition, the
hypothesis attempting to set no limits to the series of changes.

In a certain sense, the first hypothesis recalls the doctrine of
uniformitarianism, which Hutton and Lyell had shaped from a rational
interpretation of the present conditions of nature. But, although it
is no longer necessary to imagine the past history of the earth as a
series of gigantic catastrophes, yet the whole record of science is
against the supposition that anything like the existing state of
nature has had an eternal duration. The record of fossils shews that
the living population of the earth has been entirely different at
different epochs. Geological history shews that, whether these changes
have come about by swift catastrophes, or by slow, enduring movements,
the surface of the globe, its distribution into land and water, the
character of these areas and the conditions of climate to which they
have been subjected have passed through changes on a colossal scale.
Moreover, if we look from this earth to the universe of stars and suns
and planets, we see everywhere evidence of unceasing change. If we use
scientific observation and reason, if we employ on the problem the
only means we possess for attempting its solution, we cannot accept
the hypothesis that the present condition of nature has been eternal.

"So far as that limited revelation of the nature of things, which
we call scientific knowledge, has yet gone, it tends, with
constantly increasing emphasis, to the belief that, not merely
the world of plants, but that of animals; not merely living
things but the whole fabric of the earth; not merely our planet
but the whole solar system, not merely our star and its
satellites, but