the general features of our planet might remain what they are.
And inasmuch as, under these circumstances, there need be no
limit to the propagation of animals and plants, it is clear that
the consistent working out of the uniformitarian idea might lead
to the conception of the eternity of the world. Not that I mean
to say that either Hutton or Lyell held this conception--
assuredly not; they would have been the first to repudiate it.
Nevertheless, the logical development of some of their arguments
tends directly towards this hypothesis.

The second hypothesis supposes that the present order of things,
at some no very remote time, had a sudden origin, and that the
world, such as it now is, had chaos for its phenomenal
antecedent. That is the doctrine which you will find stated most
fully and clearly in the immortal poem of John Milton--the
English Divina Commedia-- "Paradise Lost." I believe it
is largely to the influence of that remarkable work, combined
with the daily teachings to which we have all listened in our
childhood, that this hypothesis owes its general wide diffusion
as one of the current beliefs of English-speaking people. If you
turn to the seventh book of "Paradise Lost," you will find there
stated the hypothesis to which I refer, which is briefly this:
That this visible universe of ours came into existence at no
great distance of time from the present; and that the parts of
which it is composed made their appearance, in a certain
definite order, in the space of six natural days, in such a
manner that, on the first of these days, light appeared; that,
on the second, the firmament, or sky, separated the waters
above, from the waters beneath the firmament; that, on the third
day, the waters drew away from the dry land, and upon it a