302 THE EVOLUTION OF A FATHER. 



not love in the early days because he had a dozen 

 wives. This love was too diluted to come to any- 

 thing. What Evolution next worked at was to get 

 a quintessence. Polygamy, in other words the scat- 

 tered love of many, must, from this time forward, be 

 changed into monogamy the absorbing love of one. 

 And this transposition was gradually introduced. A 

 few polygamous people, a very few at first, become 

 monogamous. The new system worked better, it 

 spread, and was finally adopted by those higher 

 nations which it also helped to create. It is an 

 instance, nevertheless, of the slowness with which 

 radical changes succeed in leaving great masses of 

 mankind, that the older system, with the ban of 

 Evolution upon it, still survives in Modern Europe. 

 Yet there are signs, even among the uncivilized, that 

 polygamy is passing away. Among some almost 

 savage tribes it is unknown ; among others prohibited. 

 Even in a polygamous community it is usually only a 

 minority who have more wives than one. And where 

 the plural system is in full force, the tendency the 

 Evolutionist would say the transition to monogamy 

 is plainly marked, for among the many wives pos- 

 sessed by any individual, there is generally one who 

 is first favorite and ranks as helpmeet or wife. The 

 stress just laid upon the ethical gains of the monog- 

 amous state as contrasted with the polygamous, of 

 course only emphasizes one side of the question, and 

 by the pure naturalist might be ruled out of court. 

 Were the physiologist to go over the same ground he 

 could give a parallel account of the development, and 

 show that on the merely physiological plane the tran- 

 sition to monogamy and the rise of the Family wag 



