34S COSMIC PHILOSOPHT. \n. u. 



It ■will l)e remembered that, in treating of the parallel 

 evolution of the mind and the nervous system/ it was shown 

 that the increase of intelligence in complexity and speciality 

 involves a lengthening of the period during which the ner- 

 vous connections involved in ordinary adjustments are be- 

 coming organized. Even if the physical interpretation there 

 given should turn out to be inadequate, the fact remains un- 

 deniable, that while the nervous connections accompanying 

 a simple intelligence are already organized at birth, the ner- 

 vous connections accompanying a complex intelligence are 

 chiefly organized after birth. Thus there arise the pheno- 

 mena of infancy, which are non-existent among those ani- 

 mals whose psychical actions are purely reflex and instinc- 

 tive. Infancy, psychologically considered, is the period during 

 which the nerve-connections and correlative ideal associations 

 necessary for self-maintenance are becoming permanently 

 established. Now this period, which only begins to exist 

 when the intelligence is considerably complex, becomes longer 

 and longer as the intelligence increases in complexity. In 

 the human race it is much longer than in any other race 

 of mammals, and it is much longer in the civilized man 

 than in the savage.^ Indeed among the educated classes of 

 civilized society, its average duration may be said to be 

 rather more than a quarter of a century, since during all this 

 time those who are to live by brain-work are simply acquir- 

 ing the capacity to do so, and are usually supported upon 

 *he products of parental labour. 



It need not be said that, on the general theory of evolu- 

 tion, the passage from the short infancy of other primates 

 to the relatively long infancy witnessed among the lowest 

 contemporary savages, cannot have been a sudden one.* But 



^ See above, part iL chap, xvi 



* Possibly there may be a kindred implication in the fact that ■women attain 

 maturity earlier than men. 



3 In this connection it is interesting to observe that the phenomena o( 

 infancj seem to be decidedly more marked in the anthropoid apes than iu 

 other non-humaa primates. Ai the age of one month the orang outang hegini 



