PHYSIOLOGICAL IGNORANCE 285 



right of necessity imply any change in this respect. 

 So far diffused is the evidence of ignorance that such 

 ignorance must have been universal ; so deeply rooted 

 is it that it must have prevailed through many ages. 

 The question of paternity is not one that would have 

 early engaged the attention of mankind. It needed 

 close and persistent observation ; it would have been 

 obscured by subjects more immediately urgent ; and if 

 savage society still preserve the main lines of primitive 

 institutions the sexual customs of that archaic period 

 must have involved it in such complexity as would 

 have been almost impossible to unravel. Nor even 

 yet have various tribes, especially in Australia, suc- 

 ceeded in penetrating the mystery. It is true that 

 most of the races of mankind have in course of time 

 attained a rough and elementary knowledge of the 

 laws of reproduction. But the consequences in the 

 traditions whether stories beliefs institutions or 

 practices of mankind of the long reign of ignorance 

 have not disappeared, and it is probable that some of 

 them are destined to last as long as the human race. 

 Sexual morality may be improved, husbands may no 

 longer recognise children whom they are conscious 

 they have not begotten, kinships may come to be 

 everywhere formally reckoned through both parents, 

 the efforts of women to obtain children by magical 

 means may cease, child-birth from other than natural 

 causes may be scornfully repudiated as a contem- 

 poraneous possibility. But conservative prejudice 

 religious awe the delight in miracle for its own sake 

 the laziness of mind which prefers to believe what 

 somebody else has affirmed and will not take the 

 trouble to examine the evidence are more tenacious 



