EVOLUTION MADE PLAIN 43 
case all animals would be either poets or fish- 
bait. 
I know of no reason why man evolved from a 
lower mammal could not have acquired a soul 
just as easily as if he were fashioned directly 
from a batch of mud. And I infer from that 
sublime paragraph of my reverend friend’s clos¬ 
ing with the touching salutation, “Howdy, 
Grandpa,”—whoop-ee!—that his idea of heaven 
is that it is just about as stagnant a place as 
he believes this world to be. May not poor 
little stunted souls—if there are such there—• 
be permitted to unfold and develop in the 
genial environment of the realm of the blest? 
My opponent seems to be perturbed in re¬ 
gard to the exact period in the development 
of the race, “the definite hour,” when man 
came into possesion of a soul. To this ques¬ 
tion let us apply cold, merciless logic. The 
biologic history of the human race is recapitu¬ 
lated in the embryonic life of each individual. 
There are no difficulties in the way of deter¬ 
mining at what precise period the soul was in¬ 
jected into the race-man that are not also met 
with in regard to the individual. My reverend 
friend, can you point out the “definite hour”— 
why not definite minute, or second?—when in 
your embryonic development you became pos¬ 
sessed of a soul? And just three seconds before 
that event were you not in as woeful a plight 
as any soulless monkey that ever cooled him¬ 
self by swinging to and fro, suspended from a 
leafy bough by means of his prehensile caudal 
appendage? 
Is it not possible that a little bit of envy of 
