174 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



tion hold any key to them at all, its suggestion 

 must come as at least a partial relief to the 

 human mind. These are possibly cases of actual 

 reversion, cases where all the beautiful later build- 

 ings of humanity had been swept away and only 

 the elemental brute foundations left. Devolution 

 is thus assumed to be a co-relative of Evolution. 

 And as the morbid states of the Mind are more 

 and more studied in this relation, it may yet be 

 possible from the phenomena of insanity to lay 

 bare to some extent the outline of intellectual 

 ascent. In the present state both of psychology, 

 and especially of our knowledge of the brain, 

 nothing probably could be more precarious than 

 this as an argument. The very statement involves 

 modes of expression which exact science would 

 rule out of court. The best that can be said is 

 that it is a suggestion awaiting further light be- 

 fore it can even rank as a theory. Complex as 

 the source of knowledge is, the Mind itself must 

 ever be the final authority on its own biography. 

 Analogy from lower nature may do much to 

 confirm the reading ; the mental history of the 

 human race, from the rudiments of intellect in the 

 savage to its development in civilized life, may 

 contribute some closing chapters ; but unless the 

 Mind tell its own story it will never be fully told. 



