Man in the Light of Evolution 



Its brain has already been prepared to respond 

 to the stimuli of the light vibrations by form- 

 ing an image in the mind. 



Something in the very structure of the child's 

 brain leads him to accept the grand generaliza- 

 tion that like causes will produce like effects long 

 before he knows anything about cause or effect 

 in the abstract. He does not need to burn his 

 fingers more than once or twice to learn to 

 always let hot things alone. 



When in all times and places men awaken to 

 some conception of some kind of right and duty 

 and of God, when all these conceptions, how- 

 ever different in many respects, always agree in 

 certain fundamental characteristics, is not the 

 presence of a certain mental structure, waiting 

 to be awakened by the touch of something real 

 in environment, the most natural explanation of 

 so grand and surprising a fact? 



But our religious beliefs, and our moral be- 

 liefs in only a less degree, will become axiomatic 

 only in a very distant future, if ever. It never 

 suits my inclination or my interest to deny an 

 axiom of mathematics. Why should I ever care 

 to do so? But, unfortunately, it frequently suits 

 my inclination and sometimes my immediate 



146 



