556 NATURE CROWNED IN MAN 



then usually in the form of a woman — " a little lower than 

 the angels, crowned with glory and honour ". ^' What a 

 piece of work is a man ! How noble in reason ! How infinite 

 in faculty ! in form and moving how express and admirable ! 

 in action how like an angel ! in apprehension how like a 

 God ! " 



§ 5. Factors in the Ascent of Man. 



Of the factors in the establishment of human species we 

 are very ignorant, and even speculation has not much to 

 say. Sir Ray Lankester has called attention to the inter- 

 esting fact that in Miocene times there was a great increase 

 in the size of the brain in several mammal types, such as 

 the Elephants. This may have implied that differentiation 

 of the rest of the bodily system could not profitably go much 

 further. There may also have been some potent environ- 

 mental stimulation. The possession of a big brain meant 

 great power of profiting by experience, of ^ educability % 

 and it would seem that several hundreds of thousands of 

 years ago Man's brain was not far from the standard of 

 historical times, standing head and shoulders above the rest 

 of creation in resourcefulness. But what led to the big 

 brain we do not know. Was there a gradual summation of 

 small increments in intelligence and the like, — here a wrinkle 

 and there a wrinkle in the cerebral cortex, or was there a 

 brusque mutation such as is hinted at in the occasional 

 emergence, in the brief span of historical times, of geniuses, 

 like Aristotle, Archimedes, Shakespeare, and Newton? As 

 regards the big brain, it seems not unlikely that there is 

 shrewdness in Robert Chambers's suggestion that a pro- 

 longation of the ante-natal life may have had to do with 

 the big brain, just as the prolonged infancy, characteristic 



