258 ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 9 



cannot imagine that our disappearance would cause it a passing 

 tremor. To those who have grown up in the belief that the world 

 was made solely for their occupation and benefit, this conclusion 

 seems humiliating ; but only the conceited can experience humiliation. 

 Moreover, the third scriptural criterion for a satisfactory and moral 

 life involves humility. There can be no incentive to progress for 

 those who think that they have already arrived, and there is no pros- 

 pect but a fall for the arrogant. But to those who are not blinded 

 by conceit there is stimulation in the tliought that they are playing a 

 part, however humble, in a vast drama ; and elation in the knowledge 

 that they alone, of tlie actors, can be more than puppets in the show. 



If the first two of our considerations tend to induce humility, the 

 third surely inspires confidence. The constancy of natural laws, the 

 reiteration of cause and effect, the simplicity of the outline of history, 

 show that there are some principles at least in which we can trust. 

 There is an orderliness in nature that we can appreciate without 

 knowing its origin or aim. One has but to read some of the cos- 

 mogonies of the last few centuries, when the catastrophic school was 

 trying to compress the gallon of geological facts into the pint pot of 

 canonical time, to realize how profoundly our views are altered. 

 These earnest attempts to reconcile fiction with truth led to a concep- 

 tion of the world staggering from one supernatural cataclysm to 

 another, and make ludicrous reading today. They evoke a picture of 

 a Creator learning by trial and error, with no set plan and very little 

 patience — surely the butt of ribaldry rather than the inspirer of 

 reverence. There could be no security under so fickle a tyrant, and 

 no point in trying to understand a policy that might be reversed at 

 any time. 



Just laws must bind the legislator no less than his subjects; and it 

 is a heartening thought to realize that even in Cambrian times the 

 sun shone and the rain fell with the same sort of effects as they pro- 

 duce today. It gives confidence to know that, come what may, effect 

 follows cause as day follows night, and that in a world of seeming 

 change and decay there are principles and processes that are eternal. 

 In the material world at least we can know where we are, and what 

 to expect. There are laws that neither time nor circumstance can 

 alter. We can discover their gist, learn to obey them, and so acquire 

 power beyond imagination ; and on the other hand we can ignore them 

 or defy them, and perish. 



The geological record shows that we have but a small, perhaps 

 transient, part to play in the world drama; but it also reveals the 

 grandeur of the theater and the impartiality of the management. It 

 induces humility, but gives security. The establishment we have so 

 recently entered is soundly constructed and consistently managed; 

 with reasonable observation we can learn the way to our own rooms 



