EMBRYOLOGY AND EVOLUTION 



lutely, upon a mother's care. For more than a year 

 he is less advanced than a puppy is when nine days 

 old. He has entered this life with the potency of in- 

 tellect only. His brain will slowly absorb with his 

 breath and from his food the energy contained 

 therein ; the energy, reacting on its instrument the 

 brain, may in time fit it to call forth the highest man- 

 ifestations of this protean power that this world can 

 know. Consciousness, perception and volition grad- 

 ually appear, until, after the growth and education by 

 the life around him, for nearly twenty years, the men- 

 tal and physical development of the youth may be 

 thought to be complete. He has individually passed 

 through changes that his race required countless cen- 

 turies to accomplish. But so long as man lives, if 

 his life be well spent, until disease or old age prevents, 

 his mental evolution may continue. 



The progress of modern science, even as roughly 

 sketched out in the preceding pages, has fully estab- 

 lished the fact that the infinite range of phenom- 

 ena, both in the inorganic and the organic world, are 

 the manifestations of forces, working not by irregular, 

 uncertain, or capricious acts, but by definite, certain 

 and unchangeable laws. Under the same conditions 

 and under the same forces the same results will 

 always follow. It is further shown that the proper- 

 ties of all parts of nature, or what is called matter, 

 21 321 



