vestige--of no use any more. Our dread of snakes we no doubt
inherited from our simian ancestors.

How life refined and humanized as time went on, sobered down and
became more meditative, keeping step, no doubt, with the
amelioration of the soil out of which all life finally comes. Life's
bank account in the soil was constantly increasing; more and more of
the inorganic was wrought up into the organic; the value of every
clod underfoot was raised. The riot of gigantic forms ceased, and
they became ashes. The giant and uncouth vegetation ceased, and left
ashes or coal. The beech, the maple, the oak, the olive, the palm
came in. The giant sea serpents disappeared; the horse, the ox, the
swine, the dog, the quail, the dove came in. The placental mammals
developed. The horse grew in size and beauty. When we first come
upon his trail, he is a four-hoof-toed animal no larger than a fox.
Later on we find him the size of a sheep with one of his toes gone;
still later--many hundred thousand years, no doubt--we find him the
size of a donkey, with still fewer toes, and so on till we reach the
superb creature we know.

The creative energy seems to have worked in geologic time and in the
geologic field just as it works here and now, in yonder vineyard or
in yonder marsh,--blindly, experimentally, but persistently and
successfully. The winged seeds find their proper soil, because they
search in every direction; the climbing vines find their support,
because in the same blind way they feel in all directions. Plants
and animals and races of men grope their way to new fields, to new
powers, to new inventions.

Indeed, how like an inventor Nature has worked, constantly improving