Descent of Man. 245 



If man evolved from a particular chance combination 

 of atoms at some particular juncture of conditions 

 aeons ago, the recurrence of this particular juncture is 

 tremendously improbable, especially when untold 

 millions of possible organic combinations are equally 

 open to inorganic matter. Besides, nature, like an 

 original artist, prefers to create a new form rather 

 than copy an old one in her vast atelier. But even 

 supposing some human progenitors were passing a 

 period of painful pre-human probation among the 

 protozoa, the ccelenterata, the mollusca, the annulosa, 

 or the lower vertebrata now, how could we possibly 

 recognise them as our brethren ? 



8. General Summary of Maris Materialistic Evolu- 

 tion. — Gathering all the threads of evidence together, 

 we now propose to indicate the probable mode of 

 man's natural automatic evolution on earth, by cor- 

 relating all his elementary, amoeba, jelly-fish, tadpole, 

 amphibian, and ape phases, until he finished his proba- 

 tion as a lower animal and, rising above them, trans- 

 formed into the master-mind of earth. 



In the birth or evolution of the earth from 

 elementary substance (no matter what its sidereal 

 parentage may have been) the acting energies were 

 the same as now, though perhaps differently mani- 

 fested. The conditions of substance were then only 

 favourable for producing crystals, for the high 

 temperature of those natal ages precluded organic 

 existence. But as igneous activity subsided to solid 

 quiescence, and water, soil, light, and heat interacted, 



