54 LECTURES ON EVOLUTION in 



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 between sea and land, 



The river-horse and scaly crocodile. 



At once came forth whatever creeps the ground, 



Insect or worm." 



There is no doubt as to the meaning of this 

 statement, nor as to what a man of Milton's 

 genius expected would have been actually visible 

 to an eye-witness of this mode of origination of 

 living things. 



The third hypothesis, or the hypothesis of 

 evolution, supposes that, at any comparatively late 

 period of past time, our imaginary spectator would 

 meet with a state of things very similar to that 

 which now obtains ; but that the likeness of the 

 past to the present would gradually become less 

 and less, in proportion to the remoteness of his 

 period of observation from the present day; that 



