THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



method of thought ; it would have to do so to-day 

 in myself and in every other student of nature. 

 But this miracle never appears to-day, and so it 

 must have been at the very beginning of things. 

 The miracle failed to materialize then as it does 

 now. 



The situation is by no means so hopeless as the 

 champions of miracles frequently represent it. All 

 attempts at other logical explanations do not fail 

 by any means at this point. There are quite a 

 number of probabilities, none of them in any way 

 miraculous, which we might discuss before we 

 come to the question of the origin of the primitive 

 protozoa. These possibilities may contradict one 

 another and exclude one another, but they are 

 nevertheless there, and most of them furnish a 

 fairly firm support which we cannot pass by in 

 silence. 



It has been said that historical life certainly 

 did not put in its first appearance on the earth 

 at the point where to-day the most ancient fossil 

 remains are found. It must have existed millions 

 of years before that time, in order to arrive at the 

 stage of development which meets us in these 

 first fossils. Now there is nothing to prevent us 

 from extending the term of evolution infinitely, 

 so far into the past that we arrive at a concept 



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