ITUIMAN PROSPECTS — BLACKWELDER 279 



One of our greatest dangers lies in the impatience of many people 

 to gain great results quickly. This is natural enough, in view of the 

 brevity of our individual lives. But it is inconsistent with the prin- 

 ciples which govern all life. We are a part of Nature and, however 

 much we may seem to influence natural processes, there is every rea- 

 son to believe that we are in fact and on the longer view controlled 

 by Nature. Wliether we like it or not, slow evolution is Nature's 

 way. And so we can hardly hope to elaborate some theoretical new 

 scheme of social or economic organization, put it into practice on a 

 national or world-wide scale in a few years, and have any reasonable 

 prospect of success. Hidden faults and weaknesses are likely to cause 

 failure, and that in turn may exhaust for decades even the healthy 

 impulse toward improvement. The fascination that these schemes 

 have for our youth doubtless has a complex cause, but it may well 

 be due in part to th( faulty character of our current education, which 

 has not given them t he advantages of the scientific viewpoint. Again, 

 as Daly said, they should learn to "think to scale." 



However difficult it may be to forecast future trends more than a 

 few years ahead, the geologist can hardly be expected to overlook 

 the longer view ; and so I may now raise a few questions about what 

 may be in store for humanity in another epoch — not a matter of 

 centuries but probably of tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. 



There are many who expect that man will make continuous progress 

 toward higher and better things, becoming in the course of time so 

 much wiser, more sensible, and reasonable that the world's life will 

 be vastly more happy than it has ever been in the past. War, sick- 

 ness, and poverty would then be abolished. Cruelty, hate, and in- 

 justice would become obsolete, and we should be living in a sort of 

 Golden Age the like of which we have never even approached. That 

 is a beautiful vision to contemplate, especially in these dark times. 



The lessons of historical paleontology may throw a beam of light 

 ahead on this speculation, for of course it is no more than that. As 

 we look back over the history of man we find evidence of great cul- 

 tural progress since the time of the primitive cave man, who made 

 crude stone implements but lived in isolated families competing with 

 the wild beasts of the day for such food as could be found or seized. 

 He was indeed only one of the beasts, and it is hard to point out 

 more than a few respects in which he was superior to them. Did 

 the early Stone Age men gradually develop, by slow practice and 

 learning, into modern man? We do not know, but there is little 

 reason to suppose so. All that we know today of human paleontology 

 indicates that what we loosely refer to as man comprised a group 

 of at least five and probably eight or more distinct animal species 

 which are generally grouped by zoologists in several genera. These 



