18 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OP MAN 



past progress of life we shall hope to catch hints at 

 least that man's only path to his destined goal is the 

 straight and narrow road pointed out in the Bible. If 

 in this we are even fairly successful we shall find a 

 relation and bond between the Bible and Science 

 worthy of all consideration. And this is the only 

 agreement which can ever satisfy us. 



If I wished to bring before you a view of the devel- 

 opment of man, I should best choose individuals or 

 families from various periods of human history from 

 the earliest times down to the present. I should try 

 to tell you how they looked and lived. But if anyone 

 should attempt to condense into three lectures such a 

 history of even one line of the human race, you would 

 probably think him insane. Even if he succeeded in 

 giving a fairly clear view of the different stages, the 

 successive stages would be so remote from one another, 

 such vast changes would necessarily remain unnoticed 

 or unexplained that you would hardly believe that they 

 could have any genetic relation or belong to one 

 developmental series. 



But the history which I must attempt to condense 

 for you is measured by ages, and the successive terms 

 of the series will be indefinitely more remote from each 

 other than the life and thoughts of Lincoln or "Wash- 

 ington from those of our most primitive Aryan ances- 

 tor or of the rudest savage of the Stone Age. The 

 series must appear exceedingly disconnected. Systems 

 of organs will apparently spring suddenly into exist- 

 ence, and we shall have no time to trace their origin 

 or earlier development. Even if we had an abundance 

 of time many gaps would still remain ; for the forms, 

 which according to our theory must have occupied 



