Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-11-20
IN CYCLES OF CHAOS
The World of the Present Was
Evolved to Its Existing State.
WORD PICTURES OF THE, PAST
Painted From Pigments Scattered Through
the Rocky Strata.
RD PICTURES OF THE, PAST
THE MENTAL EVOLUTION OF MAN
WRITTEN FOR THE prspArcs.I

WRITTEN FOR THE DIsPArcH.I
There is most remarkable distinction
between the historic records of nature and
what may be termed the formulated record
OF events by man. To one who goes back to
the border of archaean time and carefully
scans the way through the palsozoic, the
mesozoic and then enters the tertiary,
views the eocene, the miocens and the
pllocene ages, then continues on
through the cenozoic up and into
the age of man-to such one the petty
little record of human spites and hates, of
| ignoble ambitions, of love and selfshness,
| dirt and distress, seem most amazing in
their contemplate and trivial nothingnesa
1t is interesting to trace the universal
history as written in that grand script as
revealed by paleontology and archaeology;
the record is SO broad. so general and SO
devoid of bias, of egotism and special
pleading It is the calm authoritative
voice of the age that speaks, the tongue Of
the unrelenting past, which, though dead,
is still mutely eloquent. The extinct forms,
tho vanished races, the countless dead
tombed in the ground, the births and deaths
gence of continents-all these come back to
him who girds and grips himself to the
work and in the proper spirit knocks at the
door for knowledge.
Investigation Shuts Out Imagination.
little, preconceived impressions are worth;
one soon sees that through it all prevails a
line OF law and that all that is, or was, or
will be. is only the unfolding phenomena
along that line. There is neither need nor
room for the Imagination; for the truth
itself, the mighty evolving facts are in
themselves stranger and more wonderful
than any mere Imagination could conceive
them. But there is no other way that man
may know and understand man. It is i'm
perative 40 know the geology of his history,
to comprehend his paleolithic pedigree.
In what wonderful reliet stands out the
great drama OF creation as we view it in the
broad light of the sciences Yes, the great
drama and the great tragedy, for the one is
Complementary to the other, the inverse
and the diverse and the myriads
of forms that are impressed on the
great slabs, abundantly testify to trag-
edy on most colossal scale
Through what slow stages man hath
journeyed up! But what wild, uncouth and
almost wierd ages were those whom life was
gross, crude: when all the brain there wss
was lower brain; when cons of time passed
IN ceaseless, sava e strife, and all the prog
ress there was could only come from the
slow operation of that harsh law, the sur
vival OF the fttesti But everything was
crude, the conditions we're coarse and the
forms that had developed i'll response to
them could DO no more than respond to
their environment.
When Continents Rose and Fell.
But what cries and shrieks, what voices OF
ro or,d t.
land and water at the close Of paleozoic and
in mesozoic time, and this continued prob
ably thousands of centuries into the age of
mani Then the terror of the catachysmic
nights, when large areas of the earth under
went reorganization. when sea and dry land
changed and exchanged, when continents
were inundated, while others emerged
covered with ooze and slime, when life was
swallowed up and new creation again vir-
tuaily took place from some chance seed
that escaped the general wreck
In that earlier marshy time, life could not
have been otherwise than low. Even now,
forms. The hinge saurians and the families
OF the Amphibia throughout were the gen.
eral representatives of animal life, while
the earth was not yet ridged with mountain
still shallow, the land Low and but little that
might be termed day. Wonderful commo-
t1on was that that came when the
byeE iT ths
surprising thousand Niagaras! Gravel
and sand there were none, rock disintegra-
tion had not yet set in-years to the extent
OF many tens of thousands had yet to pass
as witnesses of slow terrestrial develop
ment, bringing with them the gradually un-
folding of the creation which should later
stand forth as the creative crow ming act
creations grandest masterpiece!
The Cycles of Evolution.
AS we now understand the correlation of
~l-u s,,AN
light into chemical affinity, that in to heat,
the heat into motion. motion into electricity
and electricity back again into sunlight
may we not postulate that in similar anal
agous way the varied life iorms in the
separate principles embodied in their |
structure, are only correlations also, OF |
the same initial emery? 1t may be |
early yet to grasp this, but it seems |
to be necessary corralary 20 that line of |
creative law that the discerning student |
sees extending through all the cons OF the |
past ages and which must just as inevi- |
tably extend into all the ages OF the future. |
What marvellous development there has
been in the quarter century just pasti What
there will be when we date 1920! |
The physical evolution of man is about /
compiete and is beginning to be compre-
hended, his mental evolution and intellec-
tual emancipation is only commencing.
Thou mystic, silent past!
Strong are the bars that hold thy wide do
And ages dark and vast,
Would hide from US thy long unbroken
reign.
Far back in early dawn,
w hat empires sleep in solitude and gloom! |
In those grand cycles gone,
What mighty secrets hide within thy womb.
Must this forever be,
That to our asking shall no answer come,
That all that we may see
And know is this, that thou remaineth
dumb?
All, no! For on thy rocks
Is all thy hist'ry craven, clear and plain,
And science now unlocks
Thy tomDs and calls thy dead to life againi
N.