CHILDHOOD 



to content himself with a study of the caterpillar, 

 might well ask himself what this strange being 

 was intended eventually to develop into. For 

 he would observe that the caterpillar (like the 

 butterfly, if our naturalist only knew it), is made 

 of a series of flattened rings, or rather of a double 

 series of half-rings, connected along the sides by 

 an elastic membrane, so as to permit the creature 

 to breathe and eat. These rings are so devised 

 that, as the caterpillar grows inside, room for ex- 

 pansion is made, and when at last the over- 

 strained skin bursts, the larvae emerges clad in a 

 new skin, which has been forming under the old 

 one. As this process is repeated, the fact would 

 be brought home to the observer that he was 

 examining a creature in a constant state of be- 

 coming something else, and if he pondered deeply 

 as to what these things meant, it is quite con- 

 ceivable that finally something remotely resem- 

 bling a butterfly might arise before the eye of 

 faith. 



In man, again, in addition to his psychical 

 development, which raises him far aloft beyond 

 the merely animal kingdom, there are still dis- 

 tinct signs, on the purely physical side, that he 

 is also a creature in the act of " becoming." In 

 the brain of man there exists a tiny gland, known 

 as the pineal gland, the meaning of which has 

 long baflled the anatomist. It has been sug- 

 gested that this is an organ in a state of atrophy 

 but science fails altogether in suggesting any 

 purpose which such a device could at any time 

 have served. Certain modern thinkers hold that 

 the pineal gland is nothing less than a rudimentary 

 eye, which later ages may bring to perfection. 

 Then, indeed, will Hamlet's words, " In my 

 mind's eye, Horatio," be no mere figure of speech. 



In frogs and toads, again, we have examples of 

 the type which starts on their earthly pilgrimage, 



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