but when did manhood begin; when did puberty, when did old age,
begin? When did each stage of our mental growth begin? When or where
did the English language begin, or the French, or the German? Was
there a first English word spoken? From the first animal sound, if
we can conceive of such, up to the human speech of to-day, there is
an infinite gradation of sounds and words.

Was there a first summer, a first winter, a first spring? There
could hardly have been a first day even for ages and ages, but only
slowly approximating day. After an immense lapse of time the air
must have cleared and the day become separated from the night, and
the seasons must have become gradually defined. Things slowly emerge
one after another from a dim, nebulous condition, both in our own
growth and experience and in the development of the physical
universe.

In nature there is no first and last. There is an endless beginning
and an endless ending. There was no first man or first woman, no
first bird, or fish, or reptile. Back of each one stretches an
endless chain of approximating men and birds and reptiles.

This talk about the time and place where man began his existence
seems to me misleading, because it appears to convey the idea that
he began as man at some time, in some place. Whereas he grew. He
began where and when the first cell appeared, and he has been on the
road ever since. There is no point in the line where he emerged from
the not-man and became man. He was emerging from the not-man for
millions of years, and when you put your finger on an animal form
and say, This is man, you must go back through whole geologic
periods before you reach the not-man. If Darwin is right, there is