170 ESSAYS OF A BIOLOGIST 



it SO that a morbid curiosity is aroused, a large pro- 

 portion of the conflicts that now arise could be 

 avoided. The other necessity is that there should be 

 provision for sublimation — in art or music, in social 

 service or in one's own work, in religion, or, in modi- 

 fied form, in sport or romance. 



It is perfectly possible, in such case, for mental 

 development to proceed naturally and comparatively 

 smoothly towards a unified organization of the type 

 of which we have spoken. Psycho-analysis would 

 not help a boy or girl developing in such a way, any 

 more than would a study of all the characters we 

 have inherited from our simian forefathers help us to 

 realize our specifically human possibilities. On the 

 other hand, when the intellectual desire to know 

 things for their own sake is aroused, as it is in most 

 boys and girls between the ages of about fourteen 

 and twenty, then just as it is good, in order to get 

 a true picture of the universe, for them to know and 

 be presented with the evidence for man's evolution 

 from lower forms, so it is good for the same reason 

 to give them an account of their psychological organ- 

 ization, including evidence for the role which sex 

 plays in the genesis of higher mental activities — 

 without, however, any necessity for psychological 

 experiments in burrowing into their own foundations. 

 In this case such knowledge would have the additional 

 value of putting them on their guard against allow- 

 ing themselves to be prejudiced by their own incom- 

 pletely-adjusted conflicts. 



