154 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN 



fact tliat man lias not become what lie is by a higher 

 development of the booty, nor by giving free rein to 

 appetite, nor yet by making the dictates of selfish pru- 

 dence supreme. And if there is any such thing as 

 continuity in history, such modes and aims of life, if 

 now followed, would surely only brutalize him and 

 plunge him headlong in degeneration. He must live 

 for right, truth, love, and duty. In just so far as he 

 makes any other aim in life supreme, or allows it to 

 even rival these, he is sinking into brutality. This is 

 the clear, unmistakable verdict of history, and we shall 

 do well to heed it. 



But granting all that can be claimed for this se- 

 quence, have not the lower forms whose anatomy we 

 have sketched worm, fish, and bird halted at various 

 points along this line of march ? Yet they have evi- 

 dently survived. And if they have found safe resting- 

 places, cannot higher forms turn back and join them ? 

 In other words, is not degeneration easier than ad- 

 vance and just as safe ? What is the result if an ani- 

 mal tries to return to a lower plane of life or refuses to 

 take the next upward step ? Generally extermination. 

 The very classification of worms in a number of small 

 isolated groups, which must once have been connected 

 by a host of intermediate forms, is indisputable proof 

 of most terrible extermination. They did not go for- 

 ward, and the survivors are but an infinitesimal frac- 

 tion of those which perished. Let us take an illustra- 

 tion where palaeontology can help us. The earth was 

 at one time covered with marsupial mammals. Some 

 advanced into placental forms. The great mass re- 

 mained behind. And outside of Australia the opos- 

 sums are the only survivors of them all. And this is 



