382 THE STORY OF THE EARTH AND MAN. 



When the Glacial period passed away, our nameless 

 simian man, or manlike ape, might naturally be sup- 

 posed to revert to its original condition, and to estab- 

 lish itself as of old in the new forests of the Modern 

 period. For some unknown reason, however, perhaps 

 because it had gone too far in the path of improve- 

 ment to be able to turn back, this reversion did not 

 take place. On the contrary, the ameliorated circum- 

 stances and wider range of the new continents enabled 

 it still further to improve. Ease and abundance per- 

 fected what struggle and privation had begun ; it 

 added to the rude arts of the Glacial time j it parted 

 with the shaggy hair now unnecessary; its features 

 became softer; and it returned in part to vegetable 

 food. Language sprang up from the attempt to arti- 

 culate natural sounds. Fire-making was invented and 

 new arts arose. At length the spiritual nature, poten- 

 tially present in the creature, was awakened by some 

 access of fear, or some grand and terrible physical 

 phenomenon ; the idea of a higher intelligence was 

 struck out, and the descendant of apes became a 

 superstitious and idolatrous savage. How much 

 trouble and discussion would have been saved, had 

 he been aware of his humble origin, and never enter- 

 tained the vain imagination that he was a child of 

 God, rather than a mere product of physical evolution ! 

 It is, indeed, curious, that at this point evolutionism, 

 like theism, has its '^fall of man;'^ for surely the 

 awakening of the religious sense, and of the know- 

 edge of good and evil, must on that theory be so 



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