56 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 



even of individuals as permanent entities. The mountain 

 chain is no more nearly eternal than the drift of sand. 

 It endures beyond the period of human observation ; it 

 antedates and outlasts human history. So does the 

 species of animal or plant outlast and antedate the life- 

 time of one man. Its changes are slight even in the 

 lifetime of the race. Thus the species, through the per- 

 sistence of its type among its changing individuals, 

 comes to be regarded as something which is beyond 

 modification, unchanging so long as it exists. 



" I believe," said the rose to the lily in the parable, 

 "I believe that our gardener is immortal. I have 

 watched him from day to day since I bloomed, and I see 

 no change in him. The tulip who died yesterday told me 

 the same thing." 



As a flash of lightning in the duration of the night, 

 so is the life of man in the duration of Nature. When 

 one looks out on a storm at night he sees for an instant 

 the landscape illumined by the lightning flash. All seems 

 at rest. The branches in the wind, the flying clouds, 

 the falling rain, are all motionless in this instantaneous 

 view. The record on the retina takes no account of 

 change, and to the eye the change does not exist. 

 Brief as the lightning flash in the storm is the life of 

 man compared with the great time record of life upon 

 earth. To the untrained man who has not learned to 

 read these records, species and types in life are endur- 

 ing. From this illusion arose the theory of special crea- 

 tion and permanence of type, a theory which could not 

 persist when the fact of change and the forces causing 

 it came to be studied in detail. 



But when man came to investigate the facts of indi- 

 vidual variation and to think of their significance, the 

 current of life no longer seemed at rest. Like the flow 

 of a mighty river, ever sweeping steadily on, never re- 



