THE LONG ROAD 



wife kneads and moulds her bread, — refining and 

 refining from age to age. Much of it was held in 

 solution in the primordial seas, whence it was fil- 

 tered and used and precipitated by countless forms 

 of marine life, making a sediment that in time be- 

 came rocks, that again in time became continents 

 or parts of them, which the aerial forces reduced to 

 soil. Indeed, the soil itself is an evolution, as much 

 so as the life upon it. 



We probably have little conception of how inti- 

 mate and cooperative all parts of the universe are 

 with one another, — of the debt we owe to the far- 

 thest stars, and to the remotest period of time. We 

 must owe a debt to the monsters of Mesozoic and 

 Csenozoic time; they helped to fertihze the soil for 

 us, and to discipline the ruder forces of life. We owe a 

 debt to all that has gone before : to the heavens above 

 and to the earth-fires beneath, to the ice-sheets that 

 ground down the mountains, and to the ocean cur- 

 rents. Just as we owe a debt to the men and women 

 in our line of descent, so we owe a debt to the ruder 

 primordial forces that shaped the planet to our use, 

 and took a hand in the game of animal life. 



The gods of evolution had served a long appren- 

 ticeship ; they had gained proficiency and were mas- 

 ter workmen. Or shall we say that the elements of 

 life had become more plastic and adaptable, or that 

 the life fund had accumulated, so to speak? Had 

 the vast succession of living beings, the long ex- 



15 



