and probably escaping them by his greater agility, perhaps by his arboreal habits.  The ancestor of the horse was also a small creature at that time, not larger than a fox.  It was not cut off; the line of descent seems complete to the horse of our day.  Small beginnings seem to be the rule in all provinces of life.  There is little doubt that the great animals of our day—­the elephant, the whale, the lion,—­all had their start in small forms.  Many of these small forms have been found.  But a complete series of any of the animal forms that eventuated in any of the dominant species is yet wanting.  It is quite certain that the huge, the gigantic, the monstrous in animal, as in vegetable life, lies far behind us.  Is it not quite certain that evolution in the life of the globe has run its course, and that it will not again bring forth reptiles or mammals of the terrible proportions of those of past geologic ages? nor ferns, nor mosses, nor as gigantic trees as those of Carboniferous times?  Probably the redwoods of the Far West, the gigantic sequoias, are the last race of gigantic trees.  The tide of life of the globe is undoubtedly at the full.  The flood has no doubt been checked many times.  The glacial periods, of which there seem to have been several in different parts of the earth, and in different geological periods, no doubt checked it when it occurred.  But the tide as a whole must have steadily risen, because the progression from lower to higher forms has gone steadily forward.  The lower forms have come along; Nature has left nothing behind.  The radiates, the articulates, the mollusca, are still with us, but in the midst of these the higher and higher forms have been constantly appearing.  The great biological tree has got its growth.  Many branches and twigs have died and dropped off, and many more will do so, are doing so before our eyes, but I cannot help doubting that any new branches of importance are yet to appear—­any new families or orders of birds, or fishes, or reptiles, or mammals.  The horse, the stag, the sheep, the dog, the cat, as we know them, are doubtless the end of the series.  One arrives at this conclusion upon general principles.  Life as a whole must run its course or reach its high-water mark, the same as life in its particular phases.  Man has arrived and has universal dominion; all things are put under his feet.  The destiny of life upon the globe is henceforth largely in his hands.  Not even he can avert the final cosmic catastrophe which physicists foresee, and which, according to Professor Lowell, the beings upon Mars are now struggling to ward off.

Man has taken his chances in the clash of forces of the physical universe.  No favor has been shown him, or is shown him to-day, and yet he has come to his estate.  He has never been coddled; fire, water, frost, gravity, hunger, death, have made and still make no exceptions in his favor.  He is on a level with all other animals in this respect.  He has his life and well-being on the same terms as do the fowls of the air and the beasts of the fields.