THE LONG ROAD 
The earth is a pretty big apple, and the solar tree 
upon which it hangs ‘is a pretty big tree, but why 
may it not have gone through a kind of ripening 
process for all that? its elements becoming less crude 
and acrid, and better suited to sustain the higher 
forms, as the eons passed? 
At any rate, the results seem to justify such a fancy. 
The earth has slowly undergone a change that may 
fairly be called a ripening process; its soil has deep- 
ened and mellowed, its harsher features have soft- 
ened, more and more color has come to its surface, 
the flowers have bloomed, the more succulent fruits 
have developed, the air has cleared, and love and 
benevolence and altruism have been born in the 
world. 
v 
Life had to creep or swim long before it could 
walk, and it walked long before it could fly; it had 
feeling long before it had eyes, and it no doubt had 
eyes long before it could hear or smell. It was ca- 
pable of motion long before it had limbs; it assimi- 
lated food long before it had a mouth or a stomach. 
It had a digestive tract long before it had a spinal 
cord; it had nerve ganglia long before it had a well- 
defined brain. It had sensation long before it had 
perception; it was unisexual long before it was bi- 
sexual; it had-a shell long before it had a skeleton; 
it had instinct and reflex-action long before it had 
self-consciousness and reason. Always from the 
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