THE MIND OF MAN 275 



441. The slow evolution of speech, and the slow concurrent 

 evolution of the structures which subserve speech during 

 innumerable generations, the one generation transmitting 

 that which it acquired from the preceding generation, with 

 slight improvements, to succeeding generations, which, by 

 the survival of the fittest, were able not only to acquire the 

 speech with the improvements, but to make further improve- 

 ments, all in like manner to be transmitted to descendants 

 of slightly larger powers, the constant repetition of this 

 process till speech as we know it was evolved, furnishes us 

 with the means of learning by analogy the process by which 

 some of the more complex acquired traits of man and the 

 lower animals have been developed. Like language, these 

 are individually acquired by each generation, but have been 

 developed and perfected during many generations, and this 

 especially when the trait is one which is only acquirable 

 slowly and with difficulty as speech is. The development of 

 speech in the individual, beginning with the inarticulate 

 cries of the infant and ending with the wide and accurate 

 power of expression possessed by the adult, is accompanied 

 by growth in the brain and the vocal organs. Probably the 

 infant, not only does not know how to speak, but is physically 

 incapable of speech. And, as we may dimly trace the life- 

 history of the race in the development of bodily structure, so 

 in the halting efforts of the child we are able to detect some- 

 thing of the way in which this great system of verbal signs 

 was painfully evolved by primitive man. 



442. The extent to which mental acquirements have 

 replaced instincts in man is seldom if ever realized. With 

 the exception of the desire for rest and sleep when wearied, 

 nearly all his remaining instincts are mere incitements to 

 make acquirements. Even sexual and parental love incite 

 thereto. Men and women endeavour by acquirements to 

 increase their powers of fascination. The mother learns to 

 tend her offspring. Moreover, to an extent difficult to 

 determine accurately, but certainly very large, both sexual 

 and parental love, or, to speak more correctly, the capacity 

 to feel them, are acquirements. It is very doubtful whether 

 the human male has any " natural affection " for his children. 

 There are indications that he acquires his love for them, as 

 he may acquire a love of country or of a particular religious 

 system, through the incitements of his imitative instincts. 

 It is notorious that the custom or fashion prevailing in any 

 race or class largely determines whether the men and the 

 women composing it shall be good or bad parents, whether 



