TIME AND CHANGE 



brooding seems to have gone on, was probably as 

 long as all the ages since. 



How we are baffled when we talk about the begin- 

 ning of anything in nature or in our own lives ! In 

 our experience there must be a first, but when did 

 manhood begin; when did puberty, when did old 

 age, begin ? When did each stage of our mental 

 growth begin ? When or where did the English lan- 

 guage begin, or the French, or the German ? Was 

 there a first English word spoken ? From the first 

 animal sound, if we can conceive of such, up to the 

 human speech of to-day, there is an infinite grada- 

 tion of sounds and words. 



Was there a first summer, a first winter, a first 

 spring ? There could hardly have been a first day 

 even for ages and ages, but only slowly approxi- 

 mating day. After an immense lapse of time the air 

 must have cleared and the day become separated 

 from the night, and the seasons must have become 

 gradually defined. Things slowly emerge one after 

 another from a dim, nebulous condition, both in our 

 own growth and experience and in the development 

 of the physical universe. 



In nature there is no first and last. There is an 

 endless beginning and an endless ending. There was 

 no first man or first woman, no first bird, or fish, or 

 reptile. Back of each one stretches an endless chain 

 of approximating men and birds and reptiles. 



This talk about the time and place where man 



12 



