EVOLUTION 



pace still more. From the apelike man of the latter 

 part of this period it made rapid strides till the first 

 rude man appears in the Quaternary age. His re- 

 mains appear so suddenly as to give some color to 

 the special creation theory. 



§ 

 To those persons born and educated during the 

 last thirty or forty years the idea of evolution and 

 of our descent from some lower animal form cannot 

 prove so new and startling a doctrine as it was to 

 those of us who were born and schooled fifty or 

 more years ago. These things are in the air now and 

 go along with the whole progress of physical science. 

 But prior to Darwin's time, and long after the pub- 

 lication of his "Origin of Species," the idea of our 

 animal ancestry was simply shocking, and, to the 

 vast majority of minds, unbelievable. All our creeds 

 and traditions and most of our science, to say noth- 

 ing of our instinctive pride of origin, stood in the 

 way of its acceptance. Our eyes had not yet been 

 opened to the true wonders of nature and how 

 divinity hedges us about. 



§ 

 All through the early geologic ages life was dif- 

 fuse; a steady concentration has taken place as 

 time has gone on. As life became more complex it 

 became less broadcast and haphazard. This was 

 the condition of progress; more organization, more 

 division of labor, more specialization; from vague, 

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