truth. Gradually we are coming to understand
that there is no reason why this truth should be unpalatable. We
consider a rise from humble conditions to be the glory of our heroes;
we esteem it an added charm in their strength that they should have
developed from untoward surroundings. It is not a disgrace to man to
have descended from the apes. It is to the glory of man that he should
have ascended from forms not much more promising-looking than the apes
of to-day. We must repeat, however, that the apes were the
unprogressive members, and hence we must not judge man's ancestors too
harshly. It must have been in them to rise. But the great glory in the
thought of the humble ancestry lies in the possibilities of his
future. If out of a creature not materially unlike the gibbering ape
of to-day there should have come, under the guiding hand of an
Almighty God, creatures with the endowments and capabilities of man of
to-day, then this is only an earnest and foretaste of that which may
be expected in the future. A time will come when man shall have risen
to heights as far above anything he now is as to-day he stands above
the ape. Even then there seems no end. With Infinite Power as the
agent, and limitless time in which to work, man would be limiting God
to an extent unwarranted by the history of the past to imagine that
His process had stopped to-day, and that man, with his many
imperfections of body, of mind, and of morals, should be the best that
is yet to come. There cling to him still the limitations and dregs of
his brute life. Often the brute in him comes to the surface. Little by
little he is coming to be dominated by the qualities God has last
given him. Slowly the brute shall sink away, slowly the divine in him
shall advance, until such heights are attained as we to-day can
scarcely imagine. As we can scarcely conceive the beginnings of this
process, so we can with difficulty imagine its end. This only can be
seen by the Eternal through whom it shall all come to pass, and by
whom all will in time be accomplished.

CHAPTER VII

HOW THE MAMMALS DEVELOPED

When the idea of evolution first began to be much discussed,
especially after the publication of the "Origin of Species," there
were several points which appeared to be more than commonly difficult
of explanation. It did not seem impossible that the various types of
domesticated cattle should have descended from a common ancestor. It
did not seem diffi