LEAF AND TENDRIL 



separated from her. He has moved into another 

 plane of being, still dependent, of course, upon the 

 Nature of which he is, in a measure, the master. He 

 still runs down into the region of reflex action, but 

 he also runs up into the region of choice and reason 

 and invention, where the animal does not follow him. 



Man is emancipated, the animal is in bondage. 

 And yet man surely came by the way of the lower 

 animals. In these forms he tarried, these are his 

 kith and kin ; their marks are still upon him. But 

 how he ever left them so far behind, who can tell ? 

 How did he cut loose from them ? Why is my dog 

 on one side of the gulf and I on the other? Why 

 was he left behind by the impulse that brought 

 me over? Why are we not either all dogs or all 

 men? The wave has traveled, but the water has 

 stayed behind. What started the wave? Where 

 is the source of the force it represents ? This man- 

 impulse that has never been stayed, what or who 

 started it ? Through good and through evil report 

 has it come, through slime and ooze, and reptile 

 and fish, through monsters and dragons, and cat- 

 aclysm, and cosmic winters and summers, and has 

 arrived safely at last with man on its crest. 



Of course the animals show many human traits ; 

 their whole emotional life — and it is doubtful if 

 they have any other — seems to run parallel to our 

 own. They live in feeling, not in thought. Huxley 

 says that this is because they have no language. 

 190 



