v] LATER PROGRESS 131 



chiefly for the capture of prey and the avoidance of 

 enemies; but once formed, they were the starting- 

 point for the life of consciousness that has culminated 

 in ourselves. A blind deaf-mute child can be fed and 

 live a healthy physical life ; its mind, however, scarcely 

 exists : 



"for the book of knowledge fair 

 Presented with a Universal blank." 



But wisdom at one entrance still can find a way 

 through the gateway of touch ; and the story of Helen 

 Keller, the American girl who became blind and deaf 

 and dumb in infancy, will show how absolutely de- 

 pendent on external stimulus, even in its dealings 

 with the abstract and the non-spatial, is the mind of 

 man. 



The necessity for effort the "struggle for exist- 

 ence" in the most general sense has from age to age 

 raised the average level of independence, the measure 

 of individuality s perfection in living beings. In spite 

 of this general rise of level, there has been in every 

 age a falling away, a decline in perfection of in- 

 dividuality in certain species. This decreased in- 

 dependence reveals itself not only as structural 

 degeneration, but also in degeneration's opposite, 

 structural specialization. There is, however, a 

 common cause beneath these opposed effects, and 

 that is over-close adaptation, adaptation to very 

 narrow conditions. 



92 



