CHAPTER III 



TIME AND THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD 



In approaching evolution we must be prepared to contem- 

 plate time of vast duration. Let us begin the consideration 

 of time in its relation to ourselves; and note first the effects 

 upon our physical nature, of the events of five thousand 

 years, as they can be observed in history. In this time we 

 find that some races have progressed from barbarism to 

 high intellect, with some changes of head shape and of facial 

 expression; partly perhaps procured through admixture 

 with other blood, while other races have changed so little 

 that they seem to have remained essentially the same. There 

 are men living today who would serve as models for the 

 portrait-like baked clay art of thousands of years ago. 

 These have stood still. Some muscular forms and bone 

 structures have changed slowly under changing conditions, 

 and some are almost constant. But the change is little and 

 the constancy is great. The resemblances of races astonish 

 as much as the differences. We see that the descendants of 

 ancient civilization, for example the modern Greeks or 

 Italians, have, in common with the black African savage, 

 a bone structure which their vastly different lives have 

 differentiated only in a moderate degree. They have ac- 

 quired differences, yet when we regard the probability that 

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