THE LONG ROAD 
countries we still sée these barbarous people which 
man in his progress has left behind. Our civiliza- 
tion is like a field of light that fades off into shadows 
and darkness. There is this margin of undeveloped 
humanity on all sides. Always has it been so in 
the animal life of the globe; the higher forms have 
been pushed up from the lower, and the lower have 
remained and continued to multiply unchanged. 
It seems as if some central and cherished impulse 
had pushed on through each form, and by suc- 
cessive steps had climbed from height to height, 
gaining a little here and a little there, intensifying 
and concentrating as time went on, very vague and 
diffuse at first, embryonic so to speak, during the 
first half of the great geologic year, but quickening 
more and more, differentiating more and more, 
delayed and defeated many times, no doubt, yet 
never destroyed, leaving form after form unchanged 
behind it, till it at last reached its goal in man. 
After evolution has done all it can do for us toward 
solving the mystery of creation, much remains un- 
solved. 
Through evolution we see creation in travail- 
pains for millions of years to bring forth the varied 
forms of life as we know them; but the mystery of 
the inception of this life, and of the origin of the 
laws that have governed its development, remains. 
What lies back of it all? Who or what planted the 
germ of the biological tree, and predetermined all 
37 
