30 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 



of growth, and indulging in nothing but repetitions. 

 There were no necessary coherencies and con- 

 sanguinities, no cosmical tendencies operating 

 eternally and universally. All was whimsical and 

 arbitrary. It was not known that anything had 

 grown or evolved. All things were believed to 

 have been given beginning and assigned to their 

 respective places in the universe by a potential and 

 all-clever creator. The serpent was limbless 

 because it had officiously allowed Eve to include 

 in her dietary that which had been expressly for- 

 bidden. The quadruped walked with its face 

 towards the earth as a structural reminder of its 

 subjection to the biped, who was supposed to be 

 especially skilled in keeping his eyes rolled heaven- 

 ward. The flowers flung out their colours, not 

 for the benefit of the bugs and bees, and the stars 

 paraded, not because they were moved to do so by 

 their own eternal urgings, but because man had 

 eyes capable of being affected by them. Man was 

 an erect and featherless vertebrate because his 

 hypothetical maker was erect and featherless. (I 

 wonder whether, if a clam should conceive a 

 creator, it would have the magnanimity to make 

 him an insect or a vertebrate, or anything other 

 than a great big clam.) 



VII. The Earth an Evolution. 



The world now knows at least, the scientific 

 part of it knows that these things are not true, 

 that they are but the solemn fancies of honest but 

 simple-minded ancients who did the best they 



