46 INITIATIVE IN EVOLUTION 



treatment of a little subject agrees with that in a greater one ; nay, 

 it even proceeds in its explanations of events on the ever valuable 

 principle of Lyell in a still greater one without which to-day geology 

 would be a thing of naught, that is, the principle of explaining 

 changes in the surface of the earth by reference to causes now in action. 

 The objection that one subject is very great and the other very 

 small is not valid ; for one as much as the other there are millions 

 of years to be had for the asking. Who in these days hesitates to 

 talk and try to think in millions ? — tens of millions of men, millions 

 of soldiers, millions upon millions of money, millions of bacteria 

 in vaccines and millions of money belonging to other people disposed 

 of by the new spendthrift Minister ? 



From Lemur to Ape. 



Returning now to our Eocene lemur we must remind ourselves 

 of the problem before his simple mind and those of his Simian 

 descendants. How was he to change so greatly the direction of the 

 hair on his forearm (Fig. 1) till it should turn right about face and 

 imitate those great German " victories " of Hindenburg, well 

 called Marshal Riickwarts ? The problem lies open in the Figure 

 and receiving no aid from Selection or survival of the fittest, in 

 this little effort, he had to fall back on the eternal and tedious 

 force of habit and use. I am afraid if here I were interrupted by 

 some critic, more learned than wise, by a summary demand on the 

 part of Selection for its share in the result, I should be tempted to 

 reply with the word ^Xvotpiu employed by George Borrow, for- 

 bearing to give the translation of the reply as he gives it. Anyhow, 

 it is a case in which to " listen politely and change the subject." 



Here comes in the aspect of strife between primitive and new 

 obstructing forces in a little hair-stream. The lemur lives in trees 

 and carries on a stealthy nocturnal business, moving on all fours 

 in quest of his daily bread, and no external force or new habit avails 

 to modify the hair-slope on his forearms, and so it remains until 

 some primitive form of monkey, gradually evolving into a primitive 

 ape, brings into the family new habits and customs. Other men 

 and other manners appear in the Miocene Age. Our supposed 

 Dryopithecus fontani becomes more upright in his bodily, and 

 perhaps his moral habits, and spends an increasing amount of his 

 leisure time in the sitting posture ; his hands are frequently grasping 

 a bough as he sits and reflects, it may be in a man-ward direction, 

 or, as is more likely, on his last meal of nuts and fruits. But he did 

 not spend quite so much time as Wallace and others think in this 

 futile attitude, for he knew in his way as much as the modern 



