'But the _actions_ which result from our ideas may properly be so treated, because it is only by patient thought and work that new ideas, if good and true, become adopted and utilized; while, if untrue or if not adequately presented to the world, they are rejected or forgotten[1].'[A] _Ideas_ of Evolution, both in the Organic and the Inorganic world, existed but remained barren for thousands of years. Yet by the labours of a band of workers in last century, these ideas, which were but the dreams of poets and the guesses of philosophers, came to be the accepted creed of working naturalists, while they have profoundly affected thought and language in every branch of human enterprise. [A] For References see the end of the volume. CHAPTER II ORIGIN OF THE IDEA OF EVOLUTION In all ages, and in all parts of the world, we find that primitive man has delighted in speculating on the birth of the world in which he lives, on the origin of the living things that surround him, and especially on the beginnings of the race of beings to which he himself belongs. In a recent very interesting essay[2], the author of _The Golden Bough_ has collected, from the records of tradition, history and travel, a valuable mass of evidence concerning the legends which have grown out of these speculations. Myths of this kind would appear to fall into two categories, each of which may not improbably be associated with the different pursuits followed by the uncivilised races of mankind. Tillers of the soil, impressed as they must have been by the great annual miracle of the outburst of vegetable life as spring returns, naturally adopted one of these lines of speculation. From the dead, bare ground they witnessed the upspringing of all the wondrous beauty of the plant-world, and, in their ignorance of the chemistry of vegetable life, they imagined that the herbs, shrubs and trees are all alike built up out of the materials contained in the soil from which they grow. The recognition of the fact that animals feed on plants, or on one another, led to the obvious conclusion that the _ultimate_ materials of animal, as well as of vegetable, structures were to be sought for in the soil. And this view was confirmed by the fact that, when life ceases in plants or animals, all alike are reduced to 'dust' and again become a part of the soil--returning 'earth to earth.' In groping therefore for an explanation of the origin of living things, what could be more natural than the supposition that the first plants and animals--like those now surrounding us--were made and fashioned from the soil, dust or earth--all had been 'clay in the hands of a potter.' The widely diffused notion that man himself must have been moulded out of _red_ clay is probably accounted for by the colour of our internal organs.