Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/476

460 in kind are brought about. The result of the increasing size and complexity of the human brain, and the corresponding variety in human life, was that human beings could no longer be born in possession of full adult faculties. Infancy thus supervened as an accompaniment of increasing intellectuality. During infancy and youth the child learns what inheritance has not yet incorporated in its organization. Infancy, however, as a stage in individual life, is not confined to the human species. The man-like apes of Africa begin life as helpless babies, and are unable to walk, to feed themselves, or to grasp objects with precision until they are two or three months old. The difference between these and man is that the latter has a much increased cerebral surface, while the infancy of his progeny is correspondingly prolonged. Our earliest human ancestors lived, during an entire geologic æon, "a fierce and squalid existence." Yet even during that time was there progress; cerebral surface was increasing and babyhood was lengthening. "The process of evolution is excessively slow, and its ends are achieved at the cost of enormous waste of life"; still, for innumerable ages its direction has been toward the enriching, the diversifying, and the ennobling of human existence.

Discussing "the origins of society and morality," the exponent of the Darwinian theory tells us that "the psychical development of humanity since its earlier stages has been largely due to the reaction of individuals upon one another, in those various relations which we characterize as social." Infancy created the family, and the family, by taming, in a measure, individual selfishness, founded morality. The individual once brought under the law of the family, must begin to judge of his conduct by some standard outside of himself; "hence the germs of conscience and of the idea of duty." Society has thus led to a great improvement in the quality of individual life; it has made it possible for the world to have a Shakespeare, the difference between whose brain, taking creasing into account, and that of an Australian savage, "would doubtless be fifty times greater than the difference between the Australian's brain and that of an orang-outang." Such is the measure of our intellectual progress. On the moral side humanity can boast such leaders as Howard and Garrison. Yet the psychical development of man is not at an end. It is destined to go on, making not only intelligence greater, but sympathy stronger and more profound. It is true that the eliminating of strife "has gone on with the extreme slowness that marks all the world of evolution." Still, such a process is in operation, and upon it we build our hopes for the perfection of humanity.

So far the expounder of science. It will be observed that the statements he makes are either indisputable, or rest upon grounds of much apparent solidity. In connection with everything that he advances, there is an implicit appeal to verification. "If these things are not so," he seems to say, "then what are the facts?" It will be observed, also, that we are presented with no strained conclusions, with no glosses on