2 7 2 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 



tendencies and irrelevant impulses left us by our ances- 

 tors. The child is a mixture of imperfectly related 



impulses and powers. It is a mosaic of 

 Development ancestral heredity. Its growth into per- 

 of the ego. J 



sonahty is the process of bringing these 



elements into relation to each other. 



In his study of the phenomena of " conversion," 

 Edwin Diller Starbuck gives this view of the physio- 

 logical phenomena associated with the 

 ing development of personality, the build- 

 ing up of a self by a process which 

 "is primarily unselfing." "It is pretty well known," 

 Dr. Starbuck says, "that the quality of mind is much 

 dependent upon the fineness of nervous structure. The 

 child has about as many nerve cells as the adult. They 

 differ from those of the adult in form. Those of the 

 child are mostly round, whereas those of the adult have 

 often very many branches with which they connect with 

 the other cells. Nervous growth seems to consist large- 

 ly in the formation of new nervous connections. The 

 rapid growth at puberty probably means that at that 

 time there is a great increase in nervous branching. 

 The increased ramification of nervous tissue probably 

 determines the ability for seeing in general terms, for 

 intellectual grasp, and for spiritual insight. The rapid 

 formation of new nerve connections in early adolescence 

 may be the cause of the physiological unrest and men- 

 tal distress that intensifies into what we have called the 

 sense of incompleteness which precedes conversion. 

 The mind becomes a ferment of half-formed ideas, as 

 the brain is a mesh of poorly organized parts. This 

 creates uncertainty, unhappiness, dejection, and the like, 

 because there is not the power of free mental activity. 

 The person is restless to be born into a larger world 

 that is dimly felt. Finally, through wholesome sugges- 



