6G LECTUKES ON EVOLUTION m 



which it bears witness, the discussion of such 

 evidence is superfluous. 



But I may be permitted to regret this necessity 

 of rejecting the testimonial evidence the less, 

 because the examination of the circumstantial 

 evidence leads to the conclusion, not only that 

 it is incompetent to justify the hypothesis, but 

 that, so far as it goes, it is contrary to the 

 hypothesis. 



The considerations upon which I base this 

 conclusion are of the simplest possible character. 

 The Miltonic hypothesis contains assertions of a 

 very definite character relating to the succession 

 of living forms. It is stated that plants, for 

 example, made their appearance upon the third 

 clay, and not before. And you will understand 

 that what the poet means by plants are such 

 plants as now live, the ancestors, in the ordinary 

 way of propagation of like by like, of the trees 

 and shrubs which flourish in the present world. 

 It must needs be so ; for, if they were different, 

 either the existing plants have been the result 

 of a separate origination since that described by 

 Milton, of which we have no record, nor any 

 ground for supposition that such an occurrence 

 has taken place ; or else they have arisen by a 

 process of evolution from the original stocks. 



In the second place, it is clear that there was 

 no animal life before the fifth day, and that, on 

 the fifth day, aquatic animals and birds appeared 



