76 SELECTIONS FROM HUXLEY 



been evolved from preexisting crocodilian forms, by the opera- 

 tion of causes as completely a part of the common order of 

 nature, as those which have effected the changes of the inor- 

 ganic world. 



5 Few will venture to affirm that the reasoning which applies 

 to crocodiles loses its force among other animals, or among 

 plants. If one series of species has come into existence by the 

 operation of natural causes, it seems folly to deny that all may 

 have arisen in the same way. 



10 A small beginning has led us to a great ending. If I were to 

 put the bit of chalk with which we started into the hot but 

 obscure flame of burning hydrogen, it would presently shine 

 like the sun. It seems to me that this physical metamorpho- 

 sis is no false image of what has been the result of our subject- 



15 ing it to a jet of fervent, though nowise brilliant, thought 

 to-night. It has become luminous, and its clear rays, pene- 

 trating the abyss of the remote past, have brought within our 

 ken some stages of the evolution of the earth. And in the 

 shifting " without haste, but without rest" of the land and 



20 sea, as in the endless variation of the forms assumed by living 

 beings we have observed nothing but the natural product of 

 the forces originally possessed by the substance of the universe. 



