PROOFS OF EVOLUTION. 
27 
have been difficult to tell which had the potency 
of the dominant animal who rules the world 
to-day. 
Most people who try to reason about the matter, 
make the mistake of attempting to bridge the 
chasm at once from Shakspeare to a shrimp; and 
they say the difference is so enormous that Evolu¬ 
tion cannot be true. But the thoughtful student 
goes back step by step, age by age, until he stands 
side by side with a creature half upright and 
howling, with all the ferocious instincts of a 
brute, but yet man-like in form and function, his 
language a jumble of incoherent noises, his moral 
sense yet undeveloped, killing and eating all he 
could overpower. From this field of vision, we 
can see little difference between our potential man 
and his fellows of the forest. 
Some will ask, and do ask : “ At just what point 
and under what circumstances, did the direct line 
of man begin ?” And, “If it occurred once, why 
may it not occur again in the myriads of life- 
forms continually appearing upon the earth?” 
To the first query the answer must be, there is no 
such point. Evolution is but a shading and a 
becoming. But there were certainly circumstances 
