THE LONG ROAD 



In nature as a whole we see results and not pro- 

 cesses. We see the rock strata bent and folded, we 

 see the whole mountain-chains flexed and shortened 

 by the flexure; but had we been present, we should 

 not have suspected what was going on. Our little 

 span of life does not give us the parallax necessary. 

 The rock strata, miles thick, may be being flexed 

 now under our feet, and we know it not. The earth 

 is shrinking, but so slowly! When, under the slow 

 strain, the strata suddenly give way or sink, and an 

 earthquake results, then we know something has 

 happened. 



A recent biologist and physicist thinks, and doubt- 

 less thinks wisely, that the reason why we have 

 never been able to produce living from non-living 

 matter in our laboratories, is that we cannot take 

 time enough. Even if we could bring about the con- 

 ditions of the early geologic ages in which life had 

 its dawn, which of course we cannot, we could not 

 produce life because we have not geologic time at 

 our disposal. 



The reaction which we call life was probably as 

 much a cosmic or geologic event as were the reactions 

 which produced the different elements and com- 

 pounds, and demanded the same slow gestation in 

 the womb of time. During what cycles upon cycles 

 the great mother-forces of the universe must have 

 brooded over the inorganic before the organic was 

 brought forth ! The archean age, during which the 



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