question until after 1850. At that time, I had long done with
the Pentateuchal cosmogony, which had been impressed upon my
childish understanding as Divine truth, with all the authority of
parents and instructors, and from which it had cost me many a
struggle to get free. But my mind was unbiassed in respect of
any doctrine which presented itself, if it professed to be based
on purely philosophical and scientific reasoning. It seemed to
me then (as it does now) that "creation," in the ordinary sense
of the word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no difficulty in
imagining that, at some former period, this universe was not in
existence; and that it made its appearance in six days (or
instantaneously, if that is preferred), in consequence of the
volition of some pre-existent Being. Then, as now, the so-called
a priori arguments against Theism; and, given a Deity, against
the possibility of creative acts, appeared to me to be devoid of
reasonable foundation. I had not then, and I have not now, the
smallest a priori objection to raise to the account of the
creation of animals and plants given in 'Paradise Lost,' in which
Milton so vividly embodies the natural sense of Genesis. Far be
it from me to say that it is untrue because it is impossible. I
confine myself to what must be regarded as a modest and
reasonable request for some particle of evidence that the
existing species of animals and plants did originate in that way,
as a condition of my belief in a statement which appears to me to
be highly improbable.

And, by way of being perfectly fair, I had exactly the same
answer to give to the evolutionists of 1851-8. Within the ranks
of the biologists, at that time, I met with nobody, except Dr.
Grant, of University College, who had a word to say for