THE LONG ROAD 



period he has survived plague and pestilence, and 

 want and famine. What must he have survived in 

 prehistoric times ! What must he have had to con- 

 tend with as a cave-dweller, as a tree-dweller, as 

 a river-drift man! Before he had tools or weapons 

 what must he have had to contend with! 



Nature was full of sap and rioted in rude strength 

 well up to Quaternary times, producing extravagant 

 forms which apparently she had no use for, as she 

 has discontinued them. 



In all these things you and I had our part and lot; 

 of this prodigal outpouring of life we have reaped 

 the benefit; amid these bizarre forms and this car- 

 nival of lust and power, the manward impulse was 

 nourished and forwarded. In Eocene times nearly 

 half the mammals lived on other animals; it must 

 have been an age of great slaughter. It favored the 

 development of fleetness and cunning, in which we 

 too have an interest. Our rude progenitor was surely 

 there in some form, and escaped the slaughter. Then 

 or later it is thought he took to the trees to escape 

 his enemies, as the rats in Jamaica have taken to the 

 trees to escape the mongoose. To his tree-climbing 

 we probably owe our hand, with its opposing thumb. 



In all his disguises he is still our ancestor. His 

 story reads like a fairy book. Never did nimble 

 fancy of childhood invent such transformations — 

 only the transformations are so infinitely slow, and 

 attended with such struggle and suffering. Strike 



29 



