TIME AND CHANGE 
speculation. There can be little doubt that in early 
Tertiary times our ancestor was a small, feeble 
mammal, maybe of the lemur, maybe of the mar- 
supial kind, powerless before the great carnivorous 
mammals of that time, and probably escaping them 
by his greater agility, perhaps by his arboreal habits. 
The ancestor of the horse was also a small creature 
at that time, not larger than a fox. It was not cut 
off; the line of descent seems complete to the horse 
of our day. Small beginnings seem to be the rule in 
all provinces of life. There is little doubt that the 
great animals of our day — the elephant, the whale, 
the lion, — all had their start in small forms. Many 
of these small forms have been found. But a com- 
plete series of any of the animal forms that eventu- 
ated in any of the dominant species is yet wanting. 
It is quite certain that the huge, the gigantic, the 
monstrous in animal, as in vegetable life, lies far be- 
hind us. Is it not quite certain that evolution in the 
life of the globe has run its course, and that it will 
not again bring forth reptiles or mammals of the 
terrible proportions of those of past geologic ages? 
nor ferns, nor mosses, nor as gigantic trees as those 
of Carboniferous times? Probably the redwoods of 
the Far West, the gigantic sequoias, are the last race 
of gigantic trees. The tide of life of the globe is un- 
doubtedly at the full. The flood has no doubt been 
checked many times. The glacial periods, of which 
there seem to have been several in different parts 
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