THE LONG ROAD 
In nature as a whole we see results and not pro- 
cesses. We see the rock strata bent and folded, we 
see the whole mountain-chains flexed and shortened 
by the flexure; but had we been present, we should 
not have suspected what was going on. Our little 
span of life does not give us the parallax necessary. 
The rock strata, miles thick, may be being flexed 
now under our feet, and we know it not. The earth 
is shrinking, but so slowly! When, under the slow 
strain, the strata suddenly give way or sink, and an 
earthquake results, then we know something has 
happened. 
Arecent biologist and physicist thinks, and doubt- 
less thinks wisely, that the reason why we have 
never been able to produce living from non-living 
matter in our laboratories, is that we cannot take 
time enough. Even if we could bring about the con- 
ditions of the early geologic ages in which life had 
its dawn, which of course we cannot, we could not 
produce life because we have not geologic time at 
our disposal. 
The reaction which we call life was probably as 
much a cosmic or geologic event as were the reactions 
which produced the different elements and com- 
pounds, and demanded the same slow gestation in 
the womb of time. During what cycles upon cycles 
the great mother-forces of the universe must have 
brooded over the inorganic before the organic was 
brought forth! The archean age, during which the 
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