that clearly proves his descent from a Frog. Nor is there any argument
against this theory to be found in the relative difference of size, for
there are still existent in our world Frogs of a size and stature not
inferior to our own, and many thousand years ago they appear to have
been still larger."

"I understand that," said I, "because Frogs this enormous are, according
to our eminent geologists, who perhaps saw them in dreams, said to have
been distinguished inhabitants of the upper world before the Deluge; and
such Frogs are exactly the creatures likely to have flourished in the
lakes and morasses of your subterranean regions. But pray, proceed."

"In the Wrangling Period of History, whatever one sage asserted another
sage was sure to contradict. In fact, it was a maxim in that age, that
the human reason could only be sustained aloft by being tossed to and
fro in the perpetual motion of contradiction; and therefore another
sect of philosophers maintained the doctrine that the An was not the
descendant of the Frog, but that the Frog was clearly the improved
development of the An. The shape of the Frog, taken generally, was much
more symmetrical than that of the An; beside the beautiful conformation
of its lower limbs, its flanks and shoulders the majority of the Ana in
that day were almost deformed, and certainly ill-shaped. Again, the Frog
had the power to live alike on land and in water--a mighty privilege,
partaking of a spiritual essence denied to the An, since the disuse
of his swimming-bladder clearly proves his degeneration from a higher
development of species. Again, the earlier races of the Ana seem to
have been covered with hair, and, even to a comparatively recent date,
hirsute bushes deformed the very faces of our ancestors, spreading wild
over their cheeks and chins, as similar bushes, my poor Tish, spread
wild over yours. But the object of the higher races of the Ana through
countless generations has been to erase all vestige of connection with
hairy vertebrata, and they have gradually eliminated that debasing
capillary excrement by the law of sexual selection; the Gy-ei naturally
preferring youth or the beauty of smooth faces. But the degree of the
Frog in the scale of the vertebrata is shown in this, that he has
no hair at all, not even on his head. He was born to that hairless
perfection which the most beautiful of the Ana, despite the culture of
incalculable ages, have not yet attained. The wonder