TIME AND CHANGE 



again, and behold man! We have only to minimize 

 time and minimize space to see the impossible hap- 

 pening all about us or to see the Mosaic account of 

 creation repeated; we have only the clay and water 

 to begin with, when, presto! behold what we have 

 now! We see the rocks covered with verdure, the 

 mountains vanishing into plains, the valleys chang- 

 ing into hills or the plains changing into moun- 

 tains, tropic lands covered with ice and snow. 



Lord Salisbury thought he had discredited natu- 

 ral selection, which is one of the feet upon which 

 evolution goes, when he charged that no one had 

 ever seen it at work. We have not seen it at work 

 because our little span of life is too short. Only the 

 palaeontologist traces in the records of the rocks the 

 footsteps of this god of change. And rarely if ever 

 does he find a continuous and complete record — 

 only a footprint here and there, but he sees the 

 direction in which they are going and many of the 

 places where the traveler tarried. The palseontolo- 

 gist, that detective of the rocks, works up his case 

 with the same thoroughness and caution and the 

 same power of observation as does the detective in 

 human affairs and with a greater sweep of scientific 

 imagination. 



An agent of evolution is the influence of the en- 

 vironment, but who sees the environment set its 

 stamp upon animal life.^ After many generations we 

 may see the accumulated results. In a few in- 



214 



