TIME AND CHANGE 



ward through the invertebrates, through the fish, 

 through the reptile, through the lower mammals, 

 through his simian ancestors till he reaches his goal 

 in the man we know. 



Darwin was not the author of the theory of evolu- 

 tion, but he made the theory alive and real to the 

 imagination. He showed us what a master key it is 

 for unlocking the riddle of the life of the globe. 

 He launched biological science upon a new career 

 and made it worthy of its place in the great trilogy 

 of sciences, astronomy, geology, and biology, of 

 which Tennyson, in his poem "Parnassus," recog- 

 nized only the first two. Had Tennyson written his 

 poem in our day he would undoubtedly have in- 

 cluded biology among his "terrible Muses" that 

 tower above all others, eclipsing the glory of the 

 great poets. Or is it true that we find it easier to 

 accept the theory of the evolution of the worlds and 

 suns from nebulous matter than to accept the theory 

 of the evolution of man from the maze of the lower 

 animal forms? It is less personal to us. The astro- 

 nomer has the advantage of the biologist in one im- 

 portant respect : he can show us in the heavens now 

 the process of the evolution of worlds actually 

 going on, but the biologist cannot show us the trans- 

 formation of one species into another taking place 

 to-day. We can sound the abysses of astronomic 

 space easier than we can sound the abysses of geo- 

 logic time. The stars and the nebulae we have 



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