REVEALS AN INTELLIGENT PLAN. 
285 
The crank took the place of the arm in giving the 
sickle motion, and the iron guards of the fingers that 
held the grain against the cutting-blades. Then the 
platform was added to collect the falling spears; next 
the self-rake, and lastly the self-binder or thresher. 
The evolution of the means of transportation 
probably began with the dragging brush and the 
primitive “stone-boat.” A great forward step was 
taken when the rolling wheel was invented. Thus 
the story went on until we had our modern limited 
express. Each stage of progress was suited to the 
environment of its time. There was a constant evo¬ 
lution from the simpler and lower to the higher and 
more complex. At every step man’s intelligent handi¬ 
work is evident. 
All through its history we find life marching on 
to a higher goal, becoming more and more specialized, 
while all the lower types continue. Each successive 
advance seems to be the outgrowth of that which 
went before, with the addition of something entirely 
new. Man embodies the greatest advance. He is a 
new order of being, with an entirely new and dis¬ 
tinctive endowment. 
Life has come down the ages in great leaps and 
bounds; at every bound she leaps over a mystery; at 
every leap she gathers up something new and strange. 
Every new feature appears as suddenly as the chick 
from the shell. Has environment worked it all out ? 
It can work only by infinitesimally small changes. 
That would require thousands of intermediate forms 
between man and his ancestral animal. 
