AUSTRALIA is a remnant of Lemuria, as geologists call that ancient continent which once stretched across the Southern hemisphere. In Australia we find strange animals and plants, the relics of a bygone age. One plant is the Eucalyptus, of many varieties, a very perfect tree, with two systems of roots, one to catch surface water, the other to dig deep; formed for hardiness, yet distilling every kind of fragrant and health-giving balm. Is this tree a product of evolution? Or has Man had a hand in the perfecting of it?
Men in our recent civilization are already learning how to manipulate plants so as to make them into better plants than they were before. If it be true that the ancient continent of Lemuria was occupied by an ancient humanity, divided into races and sub-races, nations and tribes, enduring for millenniums, it must also be true that they made discoveries in science, of which agriculture is a branch. Perhaps they had gone further than we have yet gone in the art of plant culture; perhaps they had carried it to a point of perfection; perhaps they made the Eucalypts. There are many other plants and fruits and trees on the earth which seem as if they had been made at some time or another; and it is quite possible that bygone human races may have had something to do with it.
The influence of man upon nature may have been underestimated. Plants and animals seem to remain about the same for very long periods; man is able to produce variations in them; and then the varieties often remain permanent and unaltered. It is quite conceivable that scientific agriculture on a large scale may have been practised at one time or at several times in the world's history, and that many now-existing forms may be attributable thereto.
Thus far we have spoken only of the direct and purposeful influence of man upon nature; but man has also an indirect and undesigned influence. For just as the physical body of man is continually discarding atoms, which return to the soil, carrying thither vital elements that will be used over again in the lower kingdoms of nature; so man is as constantly throwing off other elements, not physical, and these likewise return to the lower kingdoms of nature to enter as vital forces into the constitution of lower forms. In other words, man excretes used-up and superfluous elements from his mind; and these, though no longer of use to man, and being now divested of everything human, may nevertheless serve to ensoul lowlier forms. It will thus be seen that some of the theories of evolution held by biologists are the reverse of the truth. The analogy between animals and the organs in man has been regarded as pointing to a descent of man from the animals; but why might it not imply a descent of animals from man? Once get rid of the idea that physical begetting is the only way in which one thing can be derived from another, and the way is clear for postulating a descent or derivation of animals from man. The crab, all claws and stomach, works off naturally and harmlessly certain proclivities which in man were cultivated to an excess too great for their further expression in the human kingdom. In the same way we have the spider, built perhaps from the cast-off atoms of a bogus-company promoter (!), the snake, the pig, etc. It has been well said that in the Zoo one may meet all one's friends and enemies—behind the bars of the cages; and the cartoonist can represent faithfully his human characters by giving them animals' heads.
But let us not overdo the idea. It is true that many of the animals now on earth appeared subsequently to man in the present "Round" of evolution; but this does not apply to all the animals. The facts are, as might be expected, not so simple as one might like them to be; for the history of evolution in all its ramifications is a long and complex one. To return to the main proposition: man plays an important part in the evolution of nature, both conscious and unconscious.
AUSTRALIAN MARSUPIALS: by Nature-Lover
AUSTRALIA is one of the oldest lands, says H. P. Blavatsky; it can produce no new forms, unless helped by fresh races or artificial cultivation and breeding. This is in keeping with the native race whose home it has been; for a portion of the present native tribes are the descendants of those later Lemurians who escaped the destruction of their fellows when the main continent was submerged. This remnant has since declined. Its environment is suggestive of a survival from a long bygone age. As Jukes says, in his Manual of Geology, it is a curious fact that the fossil marsupials found in Oxfordshire, England, together with Trigonias and other shells, and even some fossil plants, should much more nearly resemble those now living in Australia than the living forms of any other part of the globe. This fact is interesting and suggestive.