COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



liant suggestion goes far to bridge over the in- 

 terval, which formerly seemed so impracticable, 

 between brute and man. If we take the thou- 

 sands of centuries during which the human race 

 has covered both the eastern and the western 

 hemispheres, and compare with them the entire 

 duration of recorded human history, we shall 

 have set before us a profitable subject of reflec- 

 tion. Since the period during which man has pos- 

 sessed sufficient intelligence to leave a traditionary 

 record of himself is but an infinitesimal fraction of 

 the period during which he has existed upon the 

 earthy it is but fair to conclude that^ during those 

 long ages of which none but a geologic record of his 

 existence remains^ he was slowly acquiring that 

 superior intelligence which now so widely distin- 

 guishes him from all other animals} Throughout 

 an enormous period of time, his brain structure 

 and its correlated intellectual and emotional func- 

 tions must have been constantly modified both 

 by natural selection and by direct adaptation, 



^ The reader will not fail to note that, even were the ques- 

 tion otherwise left open, after the conclusive evidence sum- 

 marized in chapter ix., this point by itself is a point of truly 

 enormous weight in favour of the theory of man's descent 

 from some lower animal. Upon the theory that the human 

 race was created by a special miraculous act, its long dura- 

 tion in such utter silence is a meaningless, inexplicable fact ; 

 whereas, upon the derivation theory, it is just what might be 

 expected, 



98 



