6 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN 



ground-pine which could give rise to a rose seems far 

 more difficult and greater than to have created both 

 separately. It requires more genius, so to speak. It 

 gives us a far higher opinion of the ground-pine; 

 does it disgrace the rose ? We can look dispassion- 

 ately at plants. The rose is still and always a rose, 

 and the oak an oak, whatever its origin. And I be- 

 lieve that we shall all readily admit that evolution is 

 here a theory which does the highest honor to the wis- 

 dom and power of the Creator. What if the animal 

 kingdom is continually blossoming in ever higher 

 forms ? Does not the same reasoning hold true, only 

 with added force ? I firmly believe that we should all 

 unhesitatingly answer, yes, could we but be assured 

 that all men would everywhere and always believe that 

 we, men, were the results of an immediate creative act. 



But why do we so strenouously object to the appli- 

 cation to ourselves of the theory of evolution ? One 

 or two reasons are easily seen. We have all of us a 

 great deal of innate snobbery, we would rather have 

 been bom great than to have won greatness by the 

 most heroic struggle. But is man any less a man for 

 having arisen from something lower, and being in a 

 fair way to become something higher? Certainly 

 not, unless I am less a man for having once been a 

 baby. It is only when I am unusually cross and irri- 

 table that I object to being reminded of my infancy. 

 But a young child does not like to be reminded of it. 

 He is afraid that some one will take him for a baby 

 still. And the snob is always desperately afraid that 

 some one will fail to notice what a high-born gentle- 

 man he is. 



Now man can relapse into something lower than a 



