THE PHANTOMS BEHIND US 
forms of his humbler forebears he has himself lived 
and died myriads of times to make ready the soil 
that nurses and sustains him to-day. He is a debtor 
to Cambrian and Silurian times, to the dragons and 
saurians and mastodons that have roamed over the 
earth. Indeed, what is there or has there been in 
the universe that he is not indebted to? The remot- 
est star that shines has sent a ray that has entered 
into his life. All things are under his feet, and the 
keys of the heavens are in his hands. 
Vv 
One would fain arrive at some concrete belief or 
image of his line of descent in geologic time as he 
does in the historic period. But how hard it is to do 
so! Can we form any mental picture of the actual 
animal forms that the manward impulse has trav- 
eled through? With all the light that paleontology 
throws upon the animal life of the past, can we see 
where amid the revel of these bizarre forms our an- 
cestor hid himself? Can we see him as a reptile 
in the slime of the jungle or in the waters of the 
Mesozoic world? What was he like or what akin 
to? What mark or sign was there upon him at that 
time of the future that was before him? Can we see 
him as a fish in the old Devonian seas or lakes? Was 
he a big fish or a little fish? The primitive fishes 
were mostly of the shark kind. Is there any con- 
nection between that fact and the human sharks of 
Q21 
