Page:The Last link.djvu/168

156 the Evolutionist imagines the whole process to have been. Again, where is the difficulty implied by the change from an air-breathing, in many structural points half-amphibian, fish into a primitive land-crawling four-footed creature, if we are allowed to resolve the transformation into 1,000,000 stages? So far from there being any difficulty, rather does it appear questionable if so many infinitely small changes have been necessary to bring about this result.

One thousand years make apparently no difference in the evolution of animals, nor does one second change the aspect of the hands on the face of a clock, nor did Julius Cæesar's commission of scientific men appreciate the error of about eleven minutes in the length of the year beyond its real value; but now the Russians are, owing to this neglect, nearly two weeks behind the civilized nations.