CHAPTER IV 

 THE DAWN OF MIND 



'T^HE most beautiful witness to the Evolution 

 -*- of Man is the Mind of a little child. The 

 stealing in of that inexplicable light — yet not more 

 light than sound or touch — called consciousness, 

 the first flicker of memory, the gradual governance 

 of will, the silent ascendancy of reason — these 

 are studies in Evolution the oldest, the sweetest, 

 and the most full of meaning for mankind. Evolu- 

 tion, after all, is a study for the nursery. It 

 was ages before Darwin or Lamarck or Lucretius 

 that Maternity, bending over the hollowed cradle 

 in the forest for a first smile of recognition 

 from her babe, expressed the earliest trust in the 

 doctrine of development. Every mother since then 

 is an unconscious Evolutionist, and every little child 

 a living witness to Ascent. 



Is the Mind a new or an old thing in the world ? 

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