1 66 THE CHILD AND HEREDITY 



For this doctrine does not assimilate man to his animal 

 progenitors, but his animal progenitors to man. It does 

 not strip man of his powers, but endows the lower animal 

 creation with the promise of them, asserting that they exist 

 from the first potentially. Evolution thus comes to mean 

 what idealistic philosophers have maintained that it is, 

 namely, a process of levelling upwards, and not of levelling 

 downwards. Man is notjnade the_poorer by the enrich- 

 ment of his animal ancestors. His conscious life retains 

 its characters even although it should be proved that the 

 crude promise of it lies in simple organisms. Hence those 

 who believe that man's nature is essentially rational or 

 spiritual can abide this biological issue not only without 

 concern but with the assurance that if it be true it makes 

 the world mean more and not less ; for it brings it closer 

 to man and even makes it share, in its way, in his rational 

 enterprise. 



Within the sphere of human psychology this conception 

 of the higher as implicit in the lower favours man's ethical 

 and spiritual interests still more clearly. Psychologists 

 have been divided in opinion on this question of evolution 

 and heredity in a way closely analogous to the biologists. 

 And amongst them also the tendency, on the whole, has 

 been towards assimilating the lower to the higher, or 

 towards levelling upwards. But nothing beyond a ' ' ten- 

 dency" in this direction can be asserted thus far. For 

 there are many philosophers who, in their metaphysical 

 speculations, at least, proceed on the older hypothesis. By 

 implication, if not by direct assertion, they treat sensation, 

 perception, conception, and the higher powers of reason as 

 if they appeared successively ; and the child during his 

 development is made to pass from a perceptual and indi- 



