178 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 2 8 



minute or two ago. We have said it has TO years of life before it, 

 but in truth its expectation of life would seem to be nearer to 70,000 

 years. It may be puzzled, distressed, and often irritated at the 

 apparent meaninglessness and incomprehensibility of the world to 

 which it has suddenly wakened up. But it is still very young; it 

 might travel half the world over before finding another baby as young 

 and inexperienced as itself. It has before it time enough and to spare 

 in which it may understand everything. Sooner or later the pieces 

 of the puzzle must begin to fit together, although it may reasonably 

 be doubted whether the whole picture can ever be comprehensible to 

 one small, and apj^arently quite insignificant, part of the picture. 

 And ever the old question obtrudes itself as to whether the infant has 

 any means of knowing that it is not dreaming all the time. The pic- 

 ture it sees may be merely a creation of its own mind in which nothing 

 really exists except itself; the universe which we study with such care 

 may be a dream, and we brain cells in the mind of the dreamer. 



