250 Thomas Henry Huxley 



all eternit}' in what might be termed, broadly, its 

 present condition. The second hypothesis was that 

 the present condition of things had had only a limited 

 duration, and that, at some period of the past, what 

 we now know came into existence without any re- 

 lation of natural causation to an antecedent state. 

 The third hypothesis also assumed that the present 

 condition of things had had a limited duration, but 

 it supposed that that condition had been derived by 

 natural processes from an antecedent condition, the 

 hypothesis attempting to set no limits to the series 

 of changes. 



In a certain sense, the first hypothesis recalls the 

 doctrine of uniformitarianism, which Hutton and 

 Lyell had shaped from a rational interpretation of the 

 present conditions of nature. But, although it is no 

 longer necessary to imagine the past history of the 

 earth as a series of gigantic catastrophes, yet the whole 

 record of science is against the supposition that any- 

 thing like the existing state of nature has had an 

 eternal duration. The record of fossils shews that the 

 living population of the earth has been entirely dif- 

 ferent at different epochs. Geological history shews 

 that, whether these changes have come about by swift 

 catastrophes, or by slow, enduring movements, the 

 surface of the globe, its distribution into land and 

 water, the character of these areas and the conditions 

 of climate to which they have been subjected have 

 passed through changes on a colossal scale. Moreover, 

 if we look from this earth to the universe of stars and 

 suns and planets, we see ever3^where evidence of unceas- 

 ing change. If we use scientific observation and reason, 

 if we employ on the problem the only means we pos- 

 sess for attempting its solution, we cannot accept the 



