76 Is Man a Finality of Organic Evolution? 
from it on both sides; the blossoms are the mammalia, or milk-producin 
animals; and its fruit humanity, waiting for the ages to ripen it. This gran 
old tree has been advancing for ages, renewing its rootlets and shedding its 
bark, losing unnumbered branches in the storms of the past, and dropping 
myriads of leaves and blossoms, but, with a sound heart, reproducing better 
than it lost and fruiting in good time, with the promise of the rest when that 
fruit is fully ripe. But what evidence is there that man is the fruit of 
this wonderful tree? What peculiarity is there in the fruit of a tree that dis- 
tinguishes it from every other part? It contains a living principle which 
possesses unlimited duration, and, under favorable circumstances, may unfold 
into a tree equal, or superior, to that from which it sprang; let a piece of the 
root be separated from the tree, it speedily dies and is dissolved to dust. In 
like manner, bark, branches, blossoms and leaves perish when their connec- 
tion with the parent plant is dissevered. The fruit alone contains the power 
of continuous existence within itself. Drop it on the ground or bury it, and 
it lives and grows and sends its type down the ages. So man, the polyp, the 
snail, the worm, the fish, reptile, bird and beast may die when death comes and 
return to the undistinguished dust from which they sprang, but man possesses 
that over which death has no power, and the extinction of one life is but the 
dawn of another. : 
Did not man possess the power of unlimited progress, he would be dropped 
for some form superior to him in this respect. Nature progressed in the fish 
till the fish could advance no further and be a fish; she then progressed in the 
reptile till, in the pterodactyl and allied forms, they could advance no further 
and be reptiles; she then chose the bird, and for the same reason left it behind 
and took the beast. She now has chosen man in whom to embody this prin- 
ciple, and in him she finds that power of unlimited progress which satisfies her 
asarace. Then we satisfy the law, and, as individuals, the great future opens 
its portals for us and presents us a boundless field for our advancement. As 
the earth is being gradually cured of its evils, and as its organic forms have 
been manifested in continually progressive forms, so we may reasonably expect 
a superior race of human beings, and the eventual destruction, by the growth 
of the superior faculties, of the moral evils that war with our higher interests, 
as we have outgrown canibalism to which our forefathers were addicted. As 
we have advanced from the wild savages, with their rude stone weapons, that 
hunted the mammoth through the woods of Great Britain and dwelt in caves 
by the shore, so shall we outgrow war, intemperance, licentiousness, lying, 
bigotry, and every form of wrong-doing, and grow into intelligence, culture 
and every manly virtue. 
What will be the final destiny of the earth? As there was a time when the 
world was not, so there will come a time when it will cease to exist. When 
fruit trees can produce fruit no longer they die and return to the earth to give 
place to those that can produce fruit in turn. And when the earth is old and 
worn out and can no longer administer to man, then we may reasonably 
expect that it will die and return to the sun, from which it probably came. 
