224 Zoology as Related to Evolution. 



Darwin was the apostle to the gentiles of the forest, field, 

 and flood ; the Light of Asia to the darkened world of the 

 brute ; and as he " passed on " to his great discovery it is 

 not difficult imagining their myriads as doing for him what 

 Arnold represents them as doing for Siddartha of old : 



" Large wondering eyes 



Of woodland creatures panther, boar, and deer 

 At peace that eve gazed on his face benign 

 From cave and thicket. Bright butterflies 

 Fluttered their vans, azure and green and gold, 

 To be his fan-bearers. The doves flocked round, 

 And e'en the creeping things were 'ware and glad. 

 Voices of earth and air joined in one song 

 Which unto ears that hear said, ' Lord and Friend, 

 This is the night the ages waited for .' " 



And now, under the reign of these new influences in their 

 behalf, what does evolution point to as likely to be the 

 whole final outcome to animals from their long struggle for 

 existence, what their own place at last on the great life-tree 

 they have done so much to nourish a look into their future 

 which surely may not unfitly close our look into their long 

 past? Philosophers are not wanting who have held that, 

 sharers of man's mortality here, they will be sharers of 

 whatever immortality awaits him in the realms beyond. 

 Mourners of household pets have easily agreed with the 

 poor Indian 



"Who thinks, admitted to that equal sky, 

 His faithful dog will bear him company.' 



And there are some sportsmen, I verily believe, animated 

 with a somewhat different shade of interest, to whom heaven 

 would lose half its attraction if they thought its river of 

 life was to have no speckled trout in its waters waiting to 

 be caught, its tree of life no robins and squirrels among its 

 branches placed there to be shot at, its New Jerusalem no 

 blooded trotters on its golden pave to be bet upon, and its 

 fields of amaranth and asphodel no flying fox and hunting 

 hounds to gallop over in the merry chase. 



But without speculating on their condition beyond the 

 realms of time, we can reasonably look forward, under the 

 light of evolution, to their developing side by side with man 

 in the long future which is before him on earth, and to 

 their sharing with him at least their more saintly repre- 

 sentatives that ideal state, the golden age of heathendom 



