ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



appear to be in the service of a new principle; an 

 organizing tendency of a new kind is at work in the 

 world; chance and necessity seem to play a less con- 

 spicuous part. Yet there is nothing that meets our 

 idea of justice, or mercy, or economy of effort. 



For millions upon millions of years the earth 

 swarmed with low, all but brainless creatures. The 

 monsters of sea and land that appeared in the mid- 

 dle period were huge and terrible in body and limb, 

 but very small in capacity of brain. Huge ganglions, 

 or knots of nervous tissue, in different parts of their 

 bodies seem to have served as a substitute for a cen- 

 tralized brain and a complex nervous system. The 

 brontosaurus, seventy feet long, with a body weigh- 

 ing many tons, had a brain not much larger than a 

 man's double fists. Brains as yet played a very sub- 

 ordinate part in the world. Reptiles and half -reptiles 

 possessed the earth. The age of mammals was as yet 

 only hinted at. But after long geologic ages, mam- 

 mals came to the front, holding the precious possi- 

 bility of man, and reptiles were relegated to the rear. 

 The animal brain increased, wit began to get the 

 better of brute force, and the small and feeble ances- 

 tors of man appeared in the biological drama. They 

 were like small and timid supernumeraries skulk- 

 ing or hiding on the wings of the stage. Lemurs and 

 monkeys appeared long before there were any signs 

 of the anthropoid apes, and the anthropoid apes were 

 in evidence long before the first rude man appeared. 



42 



