be a sound base for changes of all sorts. If this be so, what could be a
more fitting subject than primeval monsters whose strength was such as to
allow a survival of thousands of years? We do not know yet if brain can
increase and develop independently of other parts of the living
structure.

"After all, the mediaeval belief in the Philosopher's Stone which could
transmute metals, has its counterpart in the accepted theory of
metabolism which changes living tissue. In an age of investigation like
our own, when we are returning to science as the base of wonders--almost
of miracles--we should be slow to refuse to accept facts, however
impossible they may seem to be.

"Let us suppose a monster of the early days of the world--a dragon of the
prime--of vast age running into thousands of years, to whom had been
conveyed in some way--it matters not--a brain just sufficient for the
beginning of growth. Suppose the monster to be of incalculable size and
of a strength quite abnormal--a veritable incarnation of animal strength.
Suppose this animal is allowed to remain in one place, thus being removed
from accidents of interrupted development; might not, would not this
creature, in process of time--ages, if necessary--have that rudimentary
intelligence developed? There is no impossibility in this; it is only
the natural process of evolution. In the beginning, the instincts of
animals are confined to alimentation, self-protection, and the
multiplication of their species. As time goes on and the needs of life
become more complex, power follows need. We have been long accustomed to
consider growth as applied almost exclusively to size in its various
aspects. But Nature, who has no doctrinaire ideas, may equally apply it
to concentration. A developing thing may expand in any given way or
form. Now, it is a scientific law that increase implies gain and loss of