Ill LECTURES ON EVOLUTION 49 



such possibilities demands a great deal of evidence 

 before it recognises them to be anything more 

 substantial. And when it is asserted that, so 

 many thousand years ago, events occurred in a 

 manner utterly foreign to and inconsistent with 

 the existing laws of Nature, men, who without 

 being particularly cautious, are simply honest 

 thinkers, unwilling to deceive themselves or de- 

 lude others, ask for trustworthy evidence of the 

 fact. 



Did things so happen or did they not ? This 

 is a historical question, and one the answer to 

 which must be sought in the same way as the 

 solution of any other historical problem. 



So far as I know, there are only three hypotheses 

 which ever have been entertained, or which well 

 can be entertained, respecting the past history of 

 Nature. I will, in the first place, state the hypo- 

 theses, and then I will consider what evidence 

 bearing upon them is in our possession, and by 

 what light of criticism that evidence is to be in- 

 terpreted. 



Upon the first hypothesis, the assumption is, 

 that phenomena of Nature similar to those ex- 

 hibited by the present world have always existed ; 

 in other words, that the universe has existed, from 

 all eternity, in what may be broadly termed its 

 present condition. 



The second hypothesis is that the present state 



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