THE LONG ROAD 



The earth is a pretty big apple, and the solar tree 

 upon which it hangs is a pretty big tree, but why 

 may it not have gone through a kind of ripening 

 process for all that? its elements becoming less crude 

 and acrid, and better suited to sustain the higher 

 forms, as the eons passed? 



At any rate, the results seem to justify such a fancy. 

 The earth has slowly undergone a change that may 

 fairly be called a ripening process; its soil has deep- 

 ened and mellowed, its harsher features have soft- 

 ened, more and more color has come to its surface, 

 the flowers have bloomed, the more succulent fruits 

 have developed, the air has cleared, and love and 

 benevolence and altruism have been born in the 

 world. 



V 



Life had to creep or swim long before it could 

 walk, and it walked long before it could fly; it had 

 feeling long before it had eyes, and it no doubt had 

 eyes long before it could hear or smell. It was ca- 

 pable of motion long before it had limbs; it assimi- 

 lated food long before it had a mouth or a stomach. 

 It had a digestive tract long before it had a spinal 

 cord; it had nerve ganglia long before it had a well- 

 defined brain. It had sensation long before it had 

 perception; it was unisexual long before it was bi- 

 sexual; it had a shell long before it had a skeleton; 

 it had instinct and reflex action long before it had 

 self -consciousness and reason. Always from the 



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