THE EVOLUTION OF A MOTHER. 285 



the higher are in perfect order only after a consider, 

 able interval of adjustment and elaboration. 



Now Infancy, physiologically considered, means the 

 fitting up of this extra machinery within the brain ; 

 and according to its elaborateness will be the time 

 required to perfect it. A sailing vessel may put 

 to sea the moment the rigging is in ; a steamer must 

 wait for the engines. And the compensation to the 

 steamer for the longer time in dock is discovered by 

 and bye in its vastly greater usefulness, its power of 

 varying its course at will, and in its superior safety in 

 time of war or storm. For its greater after-usefulness 

 also, its more varied career, its safer life, humanity has 

 to pay tribute to Evolution by a delayed and helpless 

 Infancy, a prolonged and critical constructive process. 

 Childhood in its early stage is a series of installations 

 and trials of the new machinery, a slow experimenting 

 with powers and faculties so fresh that heredity in 

 handing them down has been unable to accompany 

 them with full directions as to their use. 



The Brain of Man, to change the figure — if indeed 

 any figure of that marvellous molecular structure can 

 be attempted without seriously misleading — is an 

 elevated table-land of stratified nervous matter, fur- 

 rowed by deep and sinuous canons, and traversed by a 

 vast net- work of highways along which Thoughts pass 

 to and fro. The old and often-repeated Thoughts, or 

 mental processes, pass along beaten tracks ; the newer 

 Thoughts have less marked footpaths ; the newer still 

 are compelled to construct fresh Thought-routes for 

 themselves. Gradually these become established thor- 

 oughfares ; but in the increasing traffic and complexity 

 of life, new paths in endless multitudes have to be 



