Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/572

558 which has carried existing forms of life to so high a point of perfection.

In the Quaternary period appears man. Whence? How? These are questions which it is impossible not to ask, but for satisfactory answers to which we may have to wait a long time. All analogy leads us to believe that man was developed from some humbler form of life. Upon him was bestowed the great and unique gift of a superior thinking faculty, the material organ of which is undoubtedly his brain. Man "looks before and after," and if he also "sighs for what is not," that too is a notable mark of his superiority. Other animals learn from experience, but to man it is given sometimes to anticipate experience. He sees things in their relations, and a relation becomes to him as real as the thing itself. His thought is, therefore, compared with the thought—if we may so characterize it—of the nearest to him of the lower animals, like a higher algebra compared with the processes of a very elementary arithmetic. His senses are not in general keener than those of the lower animals. The latter, indeed, often surpass him in this respect, but what he sees or hears is for practical purposes increased a hundredfold by what he is able to infer therefrom. He knows what to look for over a wide range of possible phenomena, and separates the significant from the insignificant.

So equipped, the human race has entered upon a world already prepared in a wonderful manner for its habitation. Many were the struggles it had to endure in the early ages; but society was formed, and man, by the aid of his fellow-man, triumphed over all his foes—triumphed, at least, sufficiently to perpetuate his race and hand down from generation to generation a slowly bettering inheritance. And now, in these later days, the human individual in a civilized land can look forth on scenes of peace and plenty and beauty. In this advanced stage of the physical world the song of the bird, the hum of the bee, the gleam of the firefly, the colors and odors of flowers, the golden ripple of the cornfields, the tints and flavors of autumn fruits, are his richly to enjoy. He gazes at the clouds, at the stars, at the brimming tide of the ocean, with thoughts that have been widened and strengthened by the mental efforts of a thousand buried generations. If there is any duty, therefore, that is incumbent on the man of to-day it is to know something by his own efforts of the wonderful and beautiful world in which he has so great an inheritance. Not without feelings of love should he gaze on the landscapes which the labors of his forefathers have helped to make beautiful; and not without feelings of reverent interest should he regard the daily play of natural forces in the world around him. We should all be students in our way; it may not be much that we can do, but some little plot or corner of the great field of knowledge we should religiously till, that we may add, if not a sheaf, at least a blade to the harvests which the workers are bringing in.

Who can reflect, however, on the beauty and harmonies of Nature without remembering that human society is far as yet from having reached its perfect harmony! If there is a natural landscape there is also a human landscape; and here the blots are many, so many that it is difficult not to be discouraged at times, even when making full allowance for all the good that society has realized and represents. The man of strenuous mind will not, however, be discouraged. He will acknowledge the existing evil, and will patiently seek