TIME AND CHANGE 
again, and behold man! We have only to minimize 
time and minimize space to see the impossible hap- 
pening all about us or to see the Mosaic account of 
creation repeated; we have only the clay and water 
to begin with, when, presto! behold what we have 
now! We see the rocks covered with verdure, the 
mountains vanishing into plains, the valleys chang- 
ing into hills or the plains changing into moun- 
tains, tropic lands covered with ice and snow. 
Lord Salisbury thought he had discredited natu- 
ral selection, which is one of the feet upon which 
evolution goes, when he charged that no one had 
ever seen it at work. We have not seen it at work 
because our little span of life is too short. Only the 
paleontologist traces in the records of the rocks the 
footsteps of this god of change. And rarely if ever 
does he find a continuous and complete record — 
only a footprint here and there, but he sees the 
direction in which they are going and many of the 
places where the traveler tarried. The palzontolo- 
gist, that detective of the rocks, works up his case 
with the same thoroughness and ‘caution and the 
same power of observation as does the detective in 
human affairs and with a greater sweep of scientific 
imagination. 
An agent of evolution is the influence of the en- 
vironment, but who sees the environment set its 
stamp upon animal life? After many generations we 
may see the accumulated results. In a few in- 
Q14 
