II


If we had been made directly from clay, the way it says in the Bible,
and had therefore inherited no intermediate characteristics,--if a
god, or some principle of growth, had gone that way to work with us,
he or it might have molded us in much more splendid forms.

But considering our simian descent, it has done very well. The only
people who are disappointed in us are those who still believe that
clay story. Or who--unconsciously--still let it color their thinking.


There certainly seems to be a power at work in the world, by virtue
of which every living thing grows and develops. And it tends toward
splendor. Seeds become trees, and weak little nations grow great.
But the push or the force that is doing this, the yeast as it were,
has to work in and on certain definite kinds of material. Because
this yeast is in us there may be great and undreamed of possibilities
awaiting mankind; but because of our line of descent there are also
queer limitations.



III