We now come to what I will term Milton’s hypothesis—­the hypothesis that the present condition of things has endured for a comparatively short time; and, at the commencement of that time, came into existence within the course of six days.  I doubt not that it may have excited some surprise in your minds that I should have spoken of this as Milton’s hypothesis, rather than that I should have chosen the terms which are more customary, such as “the doctrine of creation,” or “the Biblical doctrine,” or “the doctrine of Moses,” all of which denominations, as applied to the hypothesis to which I have just referred, are certainly much more familiar to you than the title of the Miltonic hypothesis.  But I have had what I cannot but think are very weighty reasons for taking the course which I have pursued.  In the first place, I have discarded the title of the “doctrine of creation,” because my present business is not with the question why the objects which constitute Nature came into existence, but when they came into existence, and in what order.  This is as strictly a historical question as the question when the Angles and the Jutes invaded England, and whether they preceded or followed the Romans.  But the question about creation is a philosophical problem, and one which cannot be solved, or even approached, by the historical method.  What we want to learn is, whether the facts, so far as they are known, afford evidence that things arose in the way described by Milton, or whether they do not; and, when that question is settled, it will be time enough to inquire into the causes of their origination.

In the second place, I have not spoken of this doctrine as the Biblical doctrine.  It is quite true that persons as diverse in their general views as Milton the Protestant and the celebrated Jesuit Father Suarez, each put upon the first chapter of Genesis the interpretation embodied in Milton’s poem.  It is quite true that this interpretation is that which has been instilled into every one of us in our childhood; but I do not for one moment venture to say that it can properly be called the Biblical doctrine.  It is not my business, and does not lie within my competency, to say what the Hebrew text does, and what it does not signify; moreover, were I to affirm that this is the Biblical doctrine, I should be met by the authority of many eminent scholars, to say nothing of men of science, who, at various times, have absolutely denied that any such doctrine is to be found in Genesis.  If we are to listen to many expositors of no mean authority, we must believe that what seems so clearly defined in Genesis—­as if very great pains had been taken that there should be no possibility of mistake—­is not the meaning of the text at all.  The account is divided into periods that we may make just as long or as short as convenience requires.  We are also to understand that it is consistent with the original text to believe that the most complex plants and animals may have been evolved