THE EVOLUTION OF MIND 



i such being its potentialities, as glorious as its 

 product. 



And, indeed, we may prepare ourselves for the 

 main assertion of the evolutionary psychology by 

 considering the history of the individual mind. 

 Undue importance was formerly attached to that 

 particular stage in the history of an individual 

 which we call his birth. Even now many legal 

 pronouncements assume that the life of a human 

 being begins with his birth, and it is a doctrine 

 of the Jesuits, we are commonly told, that at the 

 moment of birth a newly created soul is implanted 

 in each human being. Presumably, if a child dies 

 five minutes before the accident of birth, there is 

 an end of it; but if five minutes after, there re- 

 mains an entity which passes all eternity in Para- 

 dise or in limbo, according as whether or not it was 

 baptized during those fateful moments. This doc- 

 trine, however, has only to be stated to be recog- 

 nized as arrant nonsense, and does not need the ex- 

 perience of the obstetrician, who has seen children 

 die during birth, and has performed the operation 



* of Ccesarean section on mothers of children who 

 would otherwise have attained separate existence 

 several weeks later, to be appreciated as a mere 

 expression of the worst kind of ignorance that 

 which is ignorant even of its own nature. The 

 cynic who remarked that man alone has the power 

 to make himself ridiculous must have had this case 

 in his mind. 



In considering, therefore, merely the history of 

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