BRAIN V. MUSCLE IN NATURE 177 



animals which are, for the time being, best able to take 

 care of themselves, best adapted to their environment. 

 She pays no attention to potentialities. 



If any one were kind enough to leave me a legacy of 

 ;^iooo — a most unlikely contingency — I should be 

 deeply grateful, and think all manner of good things 

 about that person ; but if any one, in recognition of my 

 services to mankind, were to leave to me, or my family, 

 ;^ 1, 000,000, payable one million years hence, I should 

 not say as much as " Thank you." The present value 

 of a cheque for ;^i,ooo,ooo dated January ist, 1,001,906, 

 is nil. So is the present value of a baby's brain. 



A tiger will not refrain from eating up a spotted deer 

 because the latter, if spared, will develop into the 

 cleverest spotted deer that ever gambolled in the jungle. 

 Natural selection acts upon young and old alike ; but it 

 is the young developing creatures upon which Nature 

 comes down with so heavy a hand ; probably not one in 

 a thousand of these reach maturity, upon an average. 

 It is obvious that a most brilliant young animal may 

 easily prove no match for the " old hand " of only 

 mediocre ability. Hence the shortness of the period of 

 helplessness is the feature most conducive to the preser- 

 vation of a species — not necessarily a short period of 

 development, but a short period of helplessness. Hence, 

 in the lower forms of animal life, the young hatch out 

 as larvse, able to take care of themselves in the struggle 

 for existence, or, if helpless, are protectively coloured to 

 a marvellous degree. So long as Nature is hampered in 

 this manner, so long as she is obliged to manufacture 

 animals at express speed, she has no opportunity of 



