82 The Recapitulation Theory and Human Infancy 



human capacity by traditional and environmental forces. The 

 savage character of boyhood is thus shown to be a necessary 

 preparatory adaptation to the adult conditions prevailing at 

 the period when human nature had assumed its specific form, 

 conditions which are roughly pictured in the instinctive equip- 

 ment of the boy whether the circumstances of his later life are 

 still fairly true to the ancient pattern in some contemporaneous 

 savage society, or whether they have been radically modified 

 in the course of historical development. If this kind of boyhood 

 in some respects seems out of place in civilization, it is not because 

 it is rehearsing a former ancestral adult condition of life; it is 

 due to the fact that the traditional and socially acquired habits 

 have altered so much for the adult in some societies that what 

 the boy is by nature disposed to do is not, superficially at least, 

 just what is expected of him as an adult in these societies. Civili- 

 zation has affected boys and adults probably equally. If this 

 should not be admitted, and a greater resemblance be found 

 among the young in different culture levels, this could very well 

 be accounted for by the fact that the inhibition, selection, and 

 organizing of the inborn qualities by habit and intelligence, 

 have had less time to register their differentiating effects. 



This last thought may be used to explain another class of 

 facts which has been supposed to illustrate recapitulation. 

 Children are thought to betray ancestral limitations in their 

 primitive tastes, their love of myth and of melodrama, of crude 

 music, dancing, the spectacular, strong colors, etc., and on the 

 side of conduct, in their laziness, desultoriness, dislike of work, 

 discontinuity of attention, stealing, lying, truancy, teasing and 

 bullying. But these things are not peculiar to children; they 

 are found equally among uncultivated adults in civilized and 

 uncivilized societies, and merely record the lack of cultural and 

 moral discipline and the coercion of civilized industry. They 

 manifest themselves wherever civilization is lacking, as in isolated 

 or unfortunate classes in modern life, or in tramps or delinquents 

 who for some reason have escaped its influence, and they are 

 not unknown in cultivated adults when the tension of civilized 

 habit is temporarily or suddenly removed. 



Continuing the process of elimination, we may refer to one 

 other group of alleged recapitulatory facts. This includes cer- 

 tain emotional attitudes associated with objects acting as their 



