312 The Morality of Nature 



growth without evolution or development beyond certain 

 limits, in an environment absolutely constant and changeless. 

 And it is quite conceivable that life in less primitive form, 

 might reach a certain stage of organization, which suited 

 conditions so continuous as to provoke no further advance. 

 Such seems to be a plausible hypothesis. It is evident 

 that even when a group of creatures, meeting new environ- 

 ment, rises in it to new organization, it may still leave behind 

 many of the old form not so stimulated. So that whether 

 life does or does not begin anew, elementary life may be 

 ever present, to supply new evolution in new problems of 

 environment. Highly organized forms may therefore be 

 products of ancestries of very different lines. Geology 

 proves that a certain development of life cannot be older 

 than a certain age; but it is silent as to the life's origin 

 within that age. Applying this argument to the hypothetical 

 descent of man it suggests that his ancestry does not run 

 through all previous known forms, even though those forms 

 arrange themselves in a series apparently leading up to it. 

 It is clearly true that evolution is not a single series; that 

 its great divisions are in fact separate dependencies; it is 

 further true that many links and precedents are missing. 

 Now it may also be true that of the ancestry preceding the 

 known human series, so much is lost that the early species 

 are not recognizable, although they may be comparatively 

 prevalent in primitive forms. It is possible now, today, 

 that a primitive type which has been dormant for ages in 

 almost unchanging environment, may be started by new 

 conditions into a career of evolution comparatively rapid, 

 and may produce an organization superior, for these new 



