The whole question of the descent of man from the lower animals, or his ascent from them, as Drummond aptly termed it, is to most people so entirely repugnant as to set them at once, and finally, against all willingness to consider the question of Evolution. This, however, does not solve the problem. Even though truth be horribly unpalatable, it is still to be believed if it is only the truth. There is practically no doubt left among scientific men of the origin of man in lower forms. The evidences grow more and more complete year by year, and from every line of investigation. Whether we study his anatomy, his embryology, his history, his language, or his civilization, all indications point in the same direction. Constant discoveries indicate the fact of an enormously long development from a very humble form. If this proves to be true and remains unpalatable, the fault lies in the palate and not in the truth. Gradually we are coming to understand that there is no reason why this truth should be unpalatable. We consider a rise from humble conditions to be the glory of our heroes; we esteem it an added charm in their strength that they should have developed from untoward surroundings. It is not a disgrace to man to have descended from the apes. It is to the glory of man that he should have ascended from forms not much more promising-looking than the apes of to-day. We must repeat, however, that the apes were the unprogressive members, and hence we must not judge man's ancestors too harshly. It must have been in them to rise. But the great glory in the thought of the humble ancestry lies in the possibilities of his future. If out of a creature not materially unlike the gibbering ape of to-day there should have come, under the guiding hand of an Almighty God, creatures with the endowments and capabilities of man of to-day, then this is only an earnest and foretaste of that which may be expected in the future. A time will come when man shall have risen to heights as far above anything he now is as to-day he stands above the ape. Even then there seems no end. With Infinite Power as the agent, and limitless time in which to work, man would be limiting God to an extent unwarranted by the history of the past to imagine that His process had stopped to-day, and that man, with his many imperfections of body, of mind, and of morals, should be the best that is yet to come. There cling to him still the limitations and dregs of his brute life. Often the brute in him comes to the surface. Little by little he is coming to be dominated by the qualities God has last given him. Slowly the brute shall sink away, slowly the divine in him shall advance, until such heights are attained as we to-day can scarcely imagine. As we can scarcely conceive the beginnings of this process, so we can with difficulty imagine its end. This only can be seen by the Eternal through whom it shall all come to pass, and by whom all will in time be accomplished. CHAPTER VII