68 EVOLUTION 



CHAPTER III 



GREAT STEPS IN EVOLUTION 



Evolution a great Succession of Achievements The Begin- 

 nings Protoplasm and Organisms Characteristic 

 Features of Living Creatures Origins among the 

 Protozoa The Protists Plants and Animals The Cell- 

 Cycle The Beginning of a Body Beginning of Death 

 The Origin of Sex The Beginnings of Brains The 

 Beginnings of Behaviour Progress along many Lines 

 The Ascent of Vertebrates The Ascent of Man Evolu- 

 tion as Retrogressive Deterioration and Parasitism. 



EVOLUTION A GREAT SUCCESSION OF 

 ACHIEVEMENTS. It is impossible to appre- 

 ciate our own human position aright unless 

 we see it in the light of history. We must 

 think of the distant stone ages when man 

 made weapons of chipped flints and then of 

 polished stone ; of the prehistoric metal 

 ages that followed when man made weapons 

 and utensils of copper, of bronze, and then 

 of iron ; and of the gradual growth of 

 civilization along many lines. We are so 

 familiar with the result that we are apt not 

 to think enough of the long succession of 

 achievements each a great event in human 

 history. It is one of the uses of a museum, 

 provided it be on evolutionary lines, like the 

 Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford, to give us 

 detailed pictures of the state of things in age 

 after age. We must have a series of human 



