46 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



diate it. But, by the arguments they used, it might have been pos- 

 sible to justify this hypothesis. 



The second hypothesis is that to which I have referred as the 

 hypothesis which supposes that the present order of things had at 

 some no very remote time a sudden origin, so that the world, such as 

 it now is, arose. 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 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 made its appearance 

 at no great distance of time from the present day, 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 in the 

 first of these days light appeared; in the second, the firmament or 

 sky separated the water above from the water beneath it ; 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 ap- 

 pearance ; that the fourth day was devoted to 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 pre- 

 ceding day ; and, finally, that man appeared npon the earth, and the 

 work of fashioning the universe was finished. John Milton, as I have 

 said, leaves no doubt whatever as to how, in his judgment, these 

 marvelous processes occurred. I doubt not that his immortal 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 re- 

 garding the perfectly concrete, definite conception which Milton had 

 respecting the origin of the animal world. He says : 



" The sixth, and of creation last, arose 

 With evening harps 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, and walked ; 

 The cattle in the fields and meadows green ; 

 Those rare and solitary, these in flocks 



