

GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION 401 



he does not see something of the majesty of the great be- 

 coming. 



We see that the length of time required for the evolu- 

 tionary process has not been, so to speak, a consideration. 

 Half-a-million years may be spent in the fashioning of a 

 feather and longer in giving the horse his hoof. It is certain 

 that the antiquity of man is enormously greater than even 

 Lyell supposed. According to the calculations of experts 

 like Keith and Sollas, it is probable that the human type 

 diverged from the Anthropoid between two and three million 

 years ago. But if it be, as many say, 800 million years 

 since organisms began to spread upon the earth, then the 

 duration of the biosphere has been to that of man as a long 

 forenoon compared with one minute. What fills us with 

 amazement is that so many of millions of years should 

 have been spent, so to speak, in laying the foundations. 

 Without rest, but certainly without haste, the process con- 

 tinued. Well might Bishop Butler say: " Men are impatient 

 and for precipitating things; but the Author of nature 

 appears deliberate throughout His operations, accomplishing 

 His natural ends by slow successive steps." In modern 

 terminology, " The Tempo of the Absolute is slow." 



Impressive also is the fact that by-paths, leading nowhere 

 in particular, are marked by the same finish as the great 

 highways that approach such notable results as the bee-hive 

 and the ant-hill, or the rookeries and the assemblies of 

 cranes, or the troop of wild horses, or the village community. 

 There are indeed many relatively simple organisms, like 

 polyps, and some old-fashioned primitive types, like Peri- 

 patus, but the large fact is the detailed intricacy of the 

 great majority of living creatures. With the category ' or- 

 ganism ' we must associate a tendency to exquisite finish of 



