184 FROM FISH TO PHILOSOPHER 



most 'fetalized' in many anatomical features: its develop- 

 ment is retarded in respect to teeth, the complete ab- 

 sence of hair from the body, the prolongation of the 

 period of gestation, the slower closure of the sutures of 

 the skull, delayed sexual maturity, and delayed matura- 

 tion of the brain. Of all fetal characters, the late closure 

 of the cranial sutures and the postnatal development of 

 the brain are of the greatest importance. The himian 

 infant is extraordinarily helpless at birth; its brain not 

 only lacks instinctual patterns which might enable it to 

 be self-sufficient, but it is so immature that it is deficient 

 in learning capacity. Hence survival depends not only 

 on a long period of maternal care but on an equally long 

 infancy and childhood spent in the family and com- 

 munity. The child's earliest acquired knowledge is chiefly 

 of the type that is imparted by parental tutelage, rich 

 in the complex and sophisticated culture of the social 

 group. It is partly because man's brain is undeveloped 

 at birth and almost utterly devoid of instinctual patterns 

 that it has the potential capacity to develop with ma- 

 turity into the wonder-working organ that it is. 



When Claude Bernard first developed his idea of the 

 internal environment in 1857, his attention was fixed on 

 the specific properties of the body fluids. But twenty 

 years later his thought had shifted to the organism as 

 a whole, and in his Lessons on the Phenomena of Life 

 Common to Animals and Plants (1878-1879), he points 

 out that the higher organism is so constituted that when 

 it is disturbed it reacts in such a manner as to restore 

 the balance: *A11 the vital mechanisms, however varied 

 they may be, have only one object, that of preserving 

 the conditions of life in the internal environment.' 



If this epitome requires amendment, it is only with 

 respect to the preposition in. When we ask "What is the 

 object of aU the vital mechanisms?' we must reply that 

 it is certainly not just the constancy of the internal en- 

 vironment, which is a lifeless solution and only one of 



