Each life form on earth is undergoing continual change. The earth and life on earth have existed for an inconceivably long time. A record of the earliest stages of evolution can be found in fossils and in the anatomy of living creatures. The laws of nature are subject to change because the material conditions that govern those laws can change. Doubts about the Biblicval account of origins and fate emerge.
All sciences are historical.
Hardy and Darwin Darwin had a profound influence on Hardy's thinking and literary development. Hardy read On the Origin of Species in the year it was first published, 1859. What Hardy took almost immediately from Darwin was not just an acceptance of the idea of life as a struggle, but a fascination with the evolutionary branching tree metaphor which is the basis of Darwin's system. Hardy's poetry often assumes that the immediately visible trace is only the evidence of earlier stages in the development of an individual or a circumstance that can no longer be seen. Hardy was also deeply affected by the Darwinian sense of how much time has passed in order for human life to develop.