-,4 LBCTUBIfl <>N' F.YOT/TTTOX in 



LimWd and full-grown. Out of the ground uprose, 

 As from his lair, the wild beast, where he w>ns 



u-st wild, in thifkot, brake, or d.-n : 

 Among the trees in pairs they rose, they \valk.-d : 

 The cattle in the fields and meadows givm : 

 Thnso ran- ami solitary ; these in flocks 



iring at once, ami in broad herds npepTUng, 

 The grassy clods now calved ; now half api 

 The tawny lion, pawing to get free 

 His hinder parts then springs, as broke from bonds, 

 And rampant shakes bis brinded mane ; the ounce, 

 Tho libbard, and the tiger, as the mole 

 Kising, the crumbled earth above them throw 

 In hillocks ; the swift stag from underground. 

 Bore np his branching head ; scarce from his mould 

 llrhi'iuoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved 

 Hi hYfivd the flocks and bleating rose 



As plants ; ambiguous between sea and land, 

 Th.- rivcr-horsf 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 tint 

 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 

 1 "f observation from the pv< sent day; that 



