374 The Effects of Evolution 



to the perpendicular position. At last man appears. He 

 stands on his feet ; he looks up to the sky. His lore-feet 

 become hands and his cry a voice. His nervous system is 

 immensely complex, and in brain-power he has left all com- 

 petitors hopelessly behind. Physical evolution in his case 

 has reached its limit, except that it goes on ever perfecting 

 and refining the form already attained. The evolutionary 

 force seized upon the brain. Though weaker and slower 

 than others, though he could neither fly nor swim, though 

 without tusk or horn or claw, he yet became able to outwit 

 all his enemies, and make himself master of the inhabitants 

 of earth not only, but of sea and air as well. From such 

 low beginnings have been developed the high table-lands of 

 our general modern intelligence ; and this is over-topped 

 by the mountainous peaks that cluster about and look up 

 to such superior heights as are represented by the names 

 of Praxiteles and Csesar and Cicero and Shakespeare and 

 Mozart and Washington. 



But the force of evolution did not stop with intellect. 

 It has climbed up into the moral. And to-day the ethical 

 ideal is mightier than all muscle not only, but all brain. 

 It dominates the nations. For to-day there is no king or 

 cabinet that dares openly defy it. However selfish or evil 

 the scheme may really be, its promoters must at least 

 put on the semblance of zeal for the general good of hu- 

 manity. 



And one more step is being taken. After a long contest 

 with materialistic theories and tendencies, there is apparent 

 a tremendous upheaval of the spiritual forces in man. It 

 looks like an unfolding of spiritual tendencies and forces 

 such as the world has never seen. 



Parallel with this general stream of progress that we 

 have noted, are other streams, whose tendency can be as 

 plainly seen. In his sexual relations man has advanced 

 from practical promiscuity, such as is found among the 

 lower animals, through polygamy, polyandry and many 

 modifications of both of these, to monogamy. Politically 

 he has advanced from the despotism of war-chiefs, through 

 all types of monarchy, to the freedom of representative 

 government, where it is recognized that all power inheres 

 in and is derived from the popular will. 



Along with all these there has been observable an indus- 

 trial tendency as well. At first the wants of man were 



