Human Infancy and the Recapitulation Theory 79 



towards the specific adult form, the view in question has refer- 

 ence merely to the appearance of psycho-physical features, which 

 thereafter remain functional for life; for example, in the statement 

 that the emotions appear in the order of their rise in the race. 



From these more or less direct applications of the biological 

 theory there is noticeable a grading off to a less and less chrono- 

 logical notion of it, as there is in embryology, until recapitulation 

 is supposed to be illustrated in any juvenile retention of ancestral 

 adult characteristics, or indeed of any ancestral traits whatever, 

 juvenile or adult. 



However these interpretations of recapitulation may differ, 



they have in common the idea that infancy is essentially retro- 



' spective, rather than adaptive and preparatory. This idea 



therefore becomes the chief point of attack in any criticism of 



the theory of recapitulation in its psycho-physical applications. 



There is perhaps little profit in attempting to assign to specific 

 writers the different interpretations of psycho-physical recapitu- 

 lation just alluded to. These have not been clearly distinguished 

 in the literature of psycho-genesis, and since the guiding ideas 

 were so directly taken from embryology the history of the dis- 

 cussion there is the really important matter. 



Romanes seems to have been the first to undertake along 

 inductive lines a detailed comparison of human psycho-genesis 

 with the history of mind as exemplified in existing animals. 

 A glance at the diagram at the beginning of "Mental Evolution 

 in Animals" (1885) will reveal the results of his effort. A glance 

 will suffice also to show its essentially artificial character. The 

 comparison was extended with greater thoroughness in "Mental 

 Evolution in Man" (1889). To the mind of Romanes the dia- 

 gram indicates "in how strikingly quantitative, as well as quali- 

 tative, a manner the development of an individual human mind 

 follows the order of mental evolution in the animal kingdom. "" 



As is well known, President G. Stanley Hall has had a large 

 part in the extension of the doctrine into the field of infancy 

 and mental genesis, and it is not surprising that his "Adoles- 

 cence" (1904) should assume it throughout. Hall's statements 

 are made with the full admission of cenogenic " distortion, " 

 "confusion," etc.; but the underlying adherence to the chrono- 



Mental Evolution in Man, p. 5. 



