EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



the individual mind, we are forced back, by logic 

 which none can now dispute, to the moment at 

 which the sex-elements of the two parents fuse 

 within the body of the mother. If it be said that 

 no one can pretend to discern any characteristics 

 of mind in the aboriginal cell even of a future 

 Shakespeare or Aristotle, the objector may be 

 asked to indicate the stage at which he conceives 

 the mental history to begin ; and when he has been 

 warned, by fact and evidence, against indicating 

 the (purely accidental and often arbitrary) mo- 

 ment of birth, he will probably be left wondering. 

 Furthermore, it may be observed that the new cell 

 which is to give rise to a new individual and in 

 which are contained the potentialities of that 

 individual's mind, is itself the product of two 

 other cells, each of which was as certainly alive as 

 it is, and was, beyond dispute, the bearer of the 

 mental characters which every one knows and 

 admits to be transmitted from parent to child. 

 In any adequate measure to reflect upon the history 

 of the individual mind is to encounter indisputable 

 facts at least as amazing as indeed, by the rapid- 

 ity of the development, much more amazing than 

 the disputed facts of the evolution of the racial 

 mind. In other words, the evolutionary assertion 

 as to the history of the mind of man is no whit more 

 incredible than the known facts as to the history 

 of the individual minds of individual men. 



Thus prepared by contemplation of the daily 

 marvel which is familiar to every parent, the evolu- 

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