leys marks left by glaciers; and in a much later geological period we find, far inland on tops of high mountains, sea shells and other vestiges of pre-historic ocean life, left there when the waters receded. For that matter, man is the only animal that progresses, in the sense that the word is customarily used; though at that, man's progress may be more or less an illusion, yet man tenaciously holds to the idea that he is going forward through the ages. Shivering apes, Huxley advises us, will huddle around a dying fire, creeping closer and closer as the embers grow cold; but never in all the centuries, says Huxley, did it occur to any ape to rekindle the fire by throwing on a log of wood.

Democracy equals the cooperation of all classes, and as between the wise man and the beggar, in the end the beggar inherits the wise man's toil. Do you doubt it? Explain then this enigma: Edison sits in his cell and beats his brains out, inventing the electric lamp—and the vagabond in the park reads by the kindly light of the Edison lamp. The whole story is there: cooperation, the down-reaching of intellect, the up-reaching of poverty; all sharing the fruits called Democracy.

However, we are confronted by the man with the literal mind. He wishes to know exactly "when" Democracy began. It is difficult for him to grasp the impressive idea that Democracy is a growth; he has been led to believe from his books, that Democracy was a matter of this or that charter, parchment or battlefield. Therefore, he demands something definite-a name, a year.

Self-preservation; how the Dog undertook
to guide the Man back to the Mother Land,
and what the Man found at his journey's
end.

Last night, I dreamed a curse had fallen on the human race; and, little by little, all that we know of inventionand discovery, as applied to invention-was lost to mankind. Along a trail all but obliterated by the detritus of ages, I picked my lonesome way over the uncharted mountains, back to the Mother Land.

Had it not been for my dog, I never could have made the journey; and long before I reached the end my spirit grew older than the black rocks scattered along the frightful trail. I went so far that the ruins of Grecian Troy were still modern; the second Troy underneath was even of our own day; and fragments of a third Troy beneath the two, seemed of yesterday.

I had been thinking of the wonderful world of invention, so characteristic of modern life, and had been musing on Edison's relative place, as against other inventive geniuses of all time; but at last, weary of fruitless comparisons, I began to realize that the historical argument might be varied indefinitely, to no final purpose. Some other test, and that a decisive one, must be used. But the question was, What was that test to be? I had about made up my mind that History is silent, her scroll a blank, when a strange thought came winging into my mind:

"If I only knew what my dog knows, all would be clear. The dog is man's most ancient and honorable friend and companion; he stood beside our race in the remote age when man first emerged from the human swarm that was nameless and naked."

As I sat thinking along this line, tonight, before the grate fire (my dog at my feet before the hearth), my dog and I began talking quite confidentially; and my dog said to me very clearly-of this I am sure—and I report his exact words:

"Master, when you say that man seeks his satisfactions in food and drink, clothing, a roof over his head, diamonds, pearls, automobiles, telephones, bonds, real estate, you are merely enlarging on the ancient fisherman with his net, the pastoral Jew with his flocks and herds, the old Teutonic hunter with his war-club and his knife."

Force of circumstances brought evolutionary necessity; the centuries shaped the problem, and passed it on in the form we behold around us today.

"Master, in the stupendous wreck of time that has intervened since my great-great-great ancestors came out of the wolf pack to live with man, fire, food and selfpreservation are still the essential facts of Civilization,

come down to us from the primeval beast-man. Without these elemental ideas, there would be no forward march for human history. All else is non-essential, merely the embroidery of life.

"Master, I will tell you the truth about this invention business. I was there, and I know. It is all very well for you to talk of the telephone and other modern wonders, but, believe me, you are on the wrong track.

"Come with me, and I will lead you back to the beginning; yes, to the greatest invention and inventor of the ages.

Surprised not only at what my dog told me, but also at his exceptional use of words, I asked for his reasons, and he immediately replied, very clearly:

"In these modern times, master, to develop an idea, there are all kinds of reference books, laboratories, and experts within easy reach. A few dollars, and the chemist tells you this or that, the model-maker is at work, the iron foundry supplies the castings; besides you have the wheel, the wedge, the lathe and all manner of other tools. But in the time I tell of man had no tools, did not know what iron is, had no stored-up knowledge, and there was no place he could find anything written down. He was face to face with a vast unknown world inhabited by ghosts and by wild beasts.

"Yet some of the greatest ideas of the ages came out of empty hands. This being true, were not the unknown savages superior to modern mechanical geniuses? It is one thing to develop an idea as a brute-man in the howling wilderness, wholly another matter to live in a world of tools and books.

"In short, if you wish to make the test, come with me, tonight, and I will lead you back; yes, prove to you what I say is a fact. I know the road over the mountains. My sense of smell is acute, my eyes are sharp, and I will hunt out and carry you back over the true trail that leads straight to our midnight Mother Land, from whence we all came, 200,000 years ago. “And what will you show me? errand."

Come, this is no fool's

"I will show you, master, the real beginnings of Civilization. For one thing, there is the original gift of fire and the original gift of food.

"Master, do you realize that there was a time when man did not know how to make the earth bring forth harvests? It may seem strange to you, but there was even a year in which this prodigious idea was unknown. Yes, I will take you back to this first wonderful seed

sower.

"And I will lead you to the tent of the first savage mother who did finger weaving. It is woman's contribution to the history of Civilization. I was there, and I know.

"Finally, master, we will go to the jungle and find the man who made himself first king of the wild beasts. I will not tell you now what his plan was, but if you are interested, leave all to me. The question is, Will you go? You can readily see that no mere man could possibly be your guide on this dreadful journey, for no man has the chart that I have in my brain. You see, once more, I was there and I know. It is all still preserved in my instincts. Come, are you willing to make the test? Any mere man would be afraid of losing his way, but I will go with you into the deepest abyss, till we stand once more in the desolate land of the Unrisen Savages, whose bones are now sometimes found embedded in the flints and marls of ancient river beds."

I was just about to ask another question, in reply to this astonishing speech, when to my surprise the hands of the clock, of their own accord, began turning backward at so swift a rate that one hundred years passed in a few seconds. A curse has fallen on our race; all that we know of Civilization is being retraced. All comforts, all signs of progress, are rapidly going out of the world.

The electric light of a sudden disappears, to be replaced by an oil lamp, that in turn by a tallow candle, next by a torch, and finally my room is heavy with shadows; and in place of the glowing home-hearth and the smoke up the chimney, I am lying before a small fire, I know not where, but some place out in the wilderness.

A moment before that, when the books flew off the shelves, I concluded that we must now already have traveled about 500 years in time, or well into the 1400's, before Gutenberg invented movable type.

The hands of the clock kept turning backward, and I see galley slaves tugging at the oars, and conjecture that the mariner's compass is no longer known, for the boats stand close to the shore. We must be back to the time of the Phoenicians, several hundred years before the birth of Christ.

I now believe that the earth is flat, and that if I walk too far in one direction I shall fall into the abyss and never return. We all live in tents, like gypsies, and the people around are dark-skinned and their beast of burden is the camel; goats feed on the hills, palms wave near by, although I am sure I did not see them a moment ago.

"Master, do not fear; I will lead you back over the old trail," came the reassuring voice of my friend.

Before me like a dream rises Babylon, for seventeen centuries the Rome of the Asiatic world; and I see the barbarian hordes come down like wolves, sweeping away and breaking the great Hittite power.

The dog leads on, here and there strikes a blind trail, but comes back; and before us is Assyria which, after a few moments of grandeur, vanishes in the common wreck, and with it pass those wonderful city builders from the Karan Valley, in Persia.

We see glimpses of their gods and temples, now lying in ruins around us; and the lonely owl hoots at the midnight moon.

We catch dissolving views of the Semitic invasions, in the midnight of time, from the Upper Euphrates; of Sargon, mightiest monarch of his day, a veritable King Charlemagne, as told in the library of old Nabondius.

Look again. The dog slowly leads along the blind trail. Nippur, the Holy City, passes like a dream; now it is a seaport, but in our later day a crumbling ruin, deep under the soil, and at least 125 miles inland. Such are the almighty changes of time.

My brindle bull terrier that I saw a while ago sleep