8oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A child, then, is born into the world a pnny, screaming, red- 

 dish creature a very fragment of humanity. Were we gods, un- 

 acquainted, let us say, with the wheel of birth and death, and did 

 we find ourselves for the first time face to face with infancy, we 

 would see in it but little promise. If we found our infant, like 

 Romulus, suckled at the breast of a she- wolf, and had we no more 

 developed human with whom to compare it, our amazement would 

 fast turn into repulsion. The child would appear a helpless para- 

 site, sucking in the outer world and making no return. The pic- 

 ture would not attract, for it would be devoid of that element, 

 dear alike to gods and men, the element of power. But add now 

 another figure. Let it be the picture of mother and child. It is a 

 picture which for many centuries has claimed the adoration of 

 mankind an adoration shown as well in its art as in its religion. 

 And back of the art and back of the religion there is, I think, a 

 significance still deeper and still more catholic. The second figure 

 has changed our entire attitude. The helplessness no longer re- 

 pels. It is seen to be a phase and not of the essence. What the 

 one is, the other may become. We love the child for its sweet 

 promise, and, though we may be disappointed a hundred times, 

 the next-comer is the occasion of renewed hope. 

 Yet the mystery is not dispelled. 



By what divine metamorphosis, we should ask, is this crude, 

 rebellious organism transformed into the likeness of the serene 

 and beautiful mother ? We could only answer this self-put ques-. 

 tion if we stopped and watched the unfolding. What the elfin 

 child of our imagination appeared to be doing the human child in 

 reality does. It drinks in the outer world ; and it must do so, for 

 upon this depend its life and its growth. Food and air and light 

 must flow to it from their several sources. They are the material 

 of its body and the stuff of its increase. The faculties must exer- 

 cise themselves upon the many objects of perception. They must 

 transmit to the brain their corresponding sensations. These are 

 the material of thought and the food which nourishes intelligence. 

 Who the alchemist is the subtle inner self which transmutes the 

 seemingly dead elements into a living organism and the accumu- 

 lated sensations into coherent thought we do not know. Let us 

 call it the human spirit, the sum of human faculty ; or, to be 

 brief, the soul. This is, I think, a legitimate use of the word. 

 But the point I want to emphasize is this, that the soul, whatever 

 it may be, whether the cause of the life process or its result, is no 

 creator. It is a living fabric, woven on the warp and woof of 

 cause and effect. It depends for its growth upon the materials of 

 growth. The spinning must cease when there are no more strands 

 to be woven. And so it comes about that souls differ from one 

 another in magnitude. They are stunted, if the material of 



