EVOLUTION GOING ON 



EVOLUTION, as we have seen in a previous chapter, is 

 another word for race-history. It means the ceaseless 

 process of Becoming, linking generation to generation 

 of living creatures. The Doctrine of Evolution states the fact 

 that the present is the child of the past and the parent of the 

 future. It comes to this, that the living plants and animals we 

 know are descended from ancestors on the whole simpler, and 

 these from others likewise simpler, and so on, back and back 

 till we reach the first living creatures, of which, unfortunately, 

 we know nothing. Evolution is a process of racial change in a 

 definite direction, whereby new forms arise, take root, and flour- 

 ish, alongside of or in the place of their ancestors, which were in 

 most cases rather simpler in structure and behaviour. 



The rock-record, which cannot be wrong, though we may 

 read it wrongly, shows clearly that there was once a time in the 

 history of the Earth when the only backboned animals were 

 Fishes. Ages passed, and there evolved Amphibians, with fingers 

 and toes, scrambling on to dry land. Ages passed, and there 

 evolved Reptiles, in bewildering profusion. There were fish- 

 lizards and sea-serpents, terrestrial dragons and flying dragons, 

 a prolific and varied stock. From the terrestrial Dinosaurs it 

 seems that Birds and Mammals arose. In succeeding ages there 

 evolved all the variety of Birds and all the variety of Mammals. 

 Until at last arose the Man. The question is whether similar 

 processes of evolution are still going on. 



We are so keenly aware of rapid changes in mankind, though 



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