152 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



Is it an Evolution from beneath or an original gift 

 from heaven ? Did the Mind, in short, come down 

 the ages like the Body, and does the mother's faith 

 in the intellectual unfolding of her babe include a 

 remoter origin for all human faculty ? Let the 

 mother look at her child and answer. "It is the 

 very breath of God," she says ; " this Child-Life is 

 Divine." And she is right. But let her look again. 

 That forehead, whose is it? It is hers. And the 

 frown which darkened it just now ? Is hers also. 

 And that which caused the frown to darken, that 

 something or nothing, behind the forehead, that flash 

 of pride, or scorn, or hate ? Alas, it is her very own. 

 And as the years roll on, and the budding life un- 

 folds, there is scarcely a mood or gesture or emotion 

 that she does not know is borrowed. But whence in 

 turn did she receive them ? From an earlier mother. 

 And she ? From a still earlier mother. And she ? 

 From the savage-mother in the woods. And the 

 savage-mother ? 



Shall we hesitate here ? We well may. So God- 

 like a gift is intellect, so wondrous a thing is con- 

 sciousness, that to link them with the animal world 

 seems to trifle with the profoundest distinctions in 

 the Universe. Yet to associate these supersensuous 

 things with the animal kingdom is not to identify 

 them with the animal-body. Electricity is linked 



