Herbert Spencer and the Doctrine of Evolution. 505 



thousand years ago in much the same condition as we now 

 see it. Throughout Christendom it was held with the 

 earnestness of religious conviction, that the universe was 

 a Divine manufacture, made out of nothing in a week, and 

 set at once to running in all its present perfection. This 

 doctrine was something more than a mere item of faith ; 

 it was a complete theory of the method of origin of natural 

 things, and it gave shape to a whole body of science, phi- 

 losophy, and common opinion, which was interpreted in ac- 

 cordance with this theory. The problem of origins was 

 thus authoritatively solved, and life, mind, man, and all 

 Nature, were studied under the hypothesis of their late and 

 sudden production. 



But it was difficult to inquire into the existing order of 

 Nature without tracing it backward. Modern science was 

 long restrained from this procedure by the power of tradi- 

 tional beliefs, but the force of facts and reasoning at length 

 proved too strong for these beliefs, and it was demon- 

 strated that the prevailing notion concerning the recent ori- 

 gin of the world was not true. Overwhelming evidence was 

 found that the universe did not come into existence in the 

 condition in which we now see it, nor in anything like that 

 condition ; but that the present order of things is the out- 

 come of a vast series of changes running back to an indefi- 

 nite and incalculable antiquity. It was proved that the 

 present forms and distributions of mountains, valleys, con- 

 tinents, and oceans, are but the final terms of a stupendous 

 course of transformations to which the crust of the earth 

 has been subjected. It was also established, that life has 

 stretched back for untold millions of years ; that multitudes 

 of its forms arose and perished in a determinate succession, 

 while the last appearing are highest in grade, as if by some 

 principle of order and progression. 



It is obvious that one of the great epochs of thought 

 had now been reached ; for the point of view from which 



