EVOLUTION 



2109 



EVOLUTION 



the stretches of time; but somehow, every- 

 thing that exists to-day has grown out of what 

 existed earlier, just as what is to come must 

 grow out of what exists to-day. 



Evolution, then, is simply a process of 

 change through unimaginable periods of time, 

 a change always from the simpler to the more 

 complex. An example or two will make this 

 clear. One of the most useful animals in the 

 world is the horse, and the breeder knows 

 how to take advantage of the laws of heredity 

 to increase this usefulness. If great strength 

 is wanted, or endurance, or fleetness, he can 

 select any one of these characteristics. Geol- 

 ogists have learned that Nature has been at 

 work since before the existence of man, breed- 

 ing changes in just this manner. Embedded 

 in rocks in various places have been found 

 fossils which show all the steps in this breed- 

 ing process. The earliest horse bore a certain 

 resemblance in general form to the horse of 

 to-day, but it was little larger than a dog, and 

 it had five toes. Gradually, through the ages, 

 the horses that were largest and strongest 

 tended to live and reproduce, while the 

 smaller, feeble ones died; and so the horse 

 became, little by little, a larger animal. In 

 like manner the toes, because for some good 

 reason they -did not help to fit the horse for 

 its environment, were in time replaced by the 

 solid hoof; it is a fact, discovered by geolo- 

 gists and biologists in their study of thou- 

 sands of instances, that those characteristics 

 which aid an animal in its struggle for exist- 

 ence tend to persist and be strengthened, while 

 those which hinder are gradually eliminated. 



Birds and Reptiles. Another very interest- 

 ing example of this wonderful process of 

 change is to be found in these two widely 

 differing forms of life. That is, they seem to 

 any but the closest student to differ widely, 

 but the biologist knows that there are struc- 

 tural resemblances which prove them closely 

 akin, and the geologist can show in his fossils 

 the connecting forms (see FOSSIL). The rep- 

 tiles came first, but gradually some reptiles 

 acquired embryo wings, and these were devel- 

 oped in succeeding generations until they be- 

 came the distinguishing mark of a new order 

 of animals. In the consideration of any such 

 development the time element cannot be too 

 strongly insisted upon. It is a great task 

 which the evolutionist puts on a man's pow- 

 ers of faith when he asks him to believe that 

 all the life-forms of to-day even man, with 

 his varied activities and his spiritual aspira- 



tions have evolved from such primitive forms 

 as now exist in the amoeba or the hydra (both 

 of which see) ; but he allows scores of millions 

 of years for the process. 



"Descent of Man." It is of interest to know 

 that birds developed from reptiles, but man 

 is far more vitally concerned with the question 

 of his own origin. Darwin, whose name in 

 the popular mind is inseparably linked with 

 the doctrine of evolution, did not hesitate to 

 declare that man and the manlike apes had 

 a common ancestor, and to-day practically 

 every scientist accepts that theory without 

 question. The nonsense verse beloved of chil- 

 dren is not only a nonsense verse it states 

 an acknowledged truth: 



Children, behold the chimpanzee ; 

 He sits on the ancestral tree 

 From which we sprang in ages gone. 

 I'm glad we sprang ; had we held on 

 We might, for aught that I can say, 

 Be horrid chimpanzees to-day. 



But the series between man and the apes 

 was not complete, and the search for the 

 "missing link" attracted much attention. The 

 fossil remains of primitive men showed that 

 in those far-off days men were in structure, 

 and especially in size of brain cavity, more 

 closely related to the apes than are the men 

 of to-day, but still they were men and not 

 apes. At length, in Java, there were found the 

 fossil remains of an animal which the scientists 

 scarce knew whether to consider man or ape; 

 there developed a general scientific agreement 

 that the missing link had been discovered. 



Recent poets, alive to great world-interests, 

 have found in the doctrines of evolution mate- 

 rial more fascinating than that afforded by 

 medieval romances, and have dealt with this 

 material in various ways. An American poet, 

 William Vaughn Moody, has conceived of 

 all life as moved from the beginning by 



A vision, a command, a fatal word : 



The name of man was uttered, and they heard. 



Upward along the aeons of old war 



They sought him ; wing and claw-bone, shank and 



bill, 



Were fashioned and rejected ; wide and far 

 They roamed the twilight jungles of their will, 

 But still they sought him, and desired him still. 



The Religious Objection. There are those of 

 the Christian faith who insist that a belief in 

 evolution and a belief in the Bible cannot go 

 hand in hand. There are others who con- 

 tend that it implies no lessening of the Cre- 

 ator's powers to state that He worked through 

 such an orderly process as evolution in His 



