THE NATURAL 



TRANSLATOR'S POSTSCRIPT 



"II y aurait peut-etre une certain correlation entre la copula- 

 tion complete et profonde et le deVeloppement cerebral." 



NOT only is this suggestion, made by our author at 

 the end of his eighth chapter, both possible and probable, 

 but it is more than likely that the brain itself, is, in 

 origin and development, only a sort of great clot of genital 

 fluid held in suspense or reserve; at first over the cervical 

 ganglion, or, earlier or in other species, held in several 

 clots over the scattered chief nerve centres; and augment- 

 ing in varying speeds and quantities into medulla oblon- 

 gata, cerebellum and cerebrum. This hypothesis would 

 perhaps explain a certain number of as yet uncorrelated 

 phenomena both psychological and physiological. It 

 would explain the enormous content of the brain as a 

 maker or presenter of images. Species would have de- 

 veloped in accordance with, or their development would 

 have been affected by, the relative discharge and reten- 

 tion of the fluid; this proportion being both a matter of 

 quantity and of quality, some animals profiting hardly 

 at all by the alluvial Nile-flood; the baboon retaining 

 nothing; men apparently stupefying themselves in some 

 cases by excess, and in other cases discharging apparently 

 only a surplus at high pressure; the gateux, or the genius, 

 the "strong-minded." 



I offer an idea rather than an argument, yet if we con- 

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