PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S LECTURES. 207 



PEOFESSOE HUXLEY'S LECTUEES. 1 



II. 



THE NEGATIVE AND FAVORABLE EVIDENCE. 



IN" my lecture on Monday night I pointed out that there are three 

 hypotheses which may be entertained, and which have been enter- 

 tained, respecting the past history of life upon the globe. According 

 to the first of these hypotheses, life, such as we now know it, has 

 existed from all eternity upon this earth. We tested that hypothesis 

 by the circumstantial evidence, as I called it, which is furnished by 

 the fossil remains contained in the earth's crust, and we found that it 

 was obviously untenable. I then proceeded to consider the second 

 hypothesis, which I termed the Miltonic hypothesis, not because it is 

 of any particular consequence to me whether John Milton seriously 

 entertained it or not, but because it is stated in a clear and unmistak- 

 able manner in- his great poem. I pointed out to you that the evi- 

 dence at our command as completely and fully negatives that hypoth- 

 esis as it did the preceding one. And I confess that I had too much 

 respect for your intelligence to think it necessary to add that that 

 negation was equally strong and equally valid whatever the source 

 from which that hypothesis might be derived, or whatever the author- 

 ity by which it might be supported. 



I further stated that, according to the hypothesis of evolution, the 

 existing state of things was the last term of a long series of antecedent 

 states, which, when traced back, would be found to show no interrup- 

 tion and no breach of continuity. I propose in this and a following 

 lecture to test this hypothesis rigorously by the evidence at command, 

 and to inquire how far that evidence could be said to be indifferent 

 to it, how far it could be said to be favorable to it, and, finally, how 

 far it could be said to be demonstrative. From almost the origin of 

 these discussions upon the existing condition and the causes which 

 have led to it of the animal and vegetable worlds, an argument has 

 been put forward as an objection to evolution, which we shall have to 

 consider very seriously. I think that that argument was first clearly 

 stated by Cuvier in his criticism of the doctrines propounded by his 

 great contemporary, Lamarck. At that time the French expedition 

 to Egypt had called the attention of learned men to the wonderful 

 stores of antiquities in that country, and there had been brought back 

 to France numerous mummified corpses of animals which the ancient 

 Egyptians revered and preserved, the date of which, at a reasonable 



1 The second of three lectures on " The Direct Evidence of Evolution," delivered at 

 Chickering Hall, New York, September 20th. From the report of the New York Trib- 

 une, carefully revised by Prof. Huxley. 



