TIME AND CHANGE 



of a current. The clam has always remained a clam, 

 the oyster remained an oyster. The cockroach is 

 about the same creature to-day that it was untold 

 seons ago; so is the shark, and so are many other 

 forms of marine life. Often where old species have 

 gone out and new come in, no progress has been 



made. 



Evolution concentrates along certain lines. The 

 biological tree behaves like another tree, branches 

 die and drop off (species become extinct), others 

 mature and remain, while some central shoot pushes 

 upward. Many of the huge reptilian and mammalian 

 branches perished in comparatively late times. 



As nothing is more evident than that the same 

 measure of life or of vital energy — power of growth, 

 power of resistance, power of reproduction — is not 

 meted out equally to all the individuals of a species, 

 or to all species, so it is evident that this power of 

 progressive development is not meted out equally to 

 all races of mankind, or to all of the individuals of 

 the same race. The central impulse of development 

 seems to have come from the East, in historic times 

 at least, and to have followed the line of the Medi- 

 terranean, to have culminated in Europe. And this 

 progress has certainly been the work of a few minds 

 — minds exceptionally endowed. 



For the most part the barbarian races do not pro- 

 gress. Their exceptional minds or characters do not 

 lead the tribes to higher planes of thought. In all 



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