362 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



sprawling ball of helplessness, the world's one type 

 of impotence. The body is there in all its parts, 

 bone for bone and muscle for muscle, like the 

 other. But somehow this body will not do its 

 work. Something as yet hangs fire. The body 

 has eyes but they see not, ears but they hear not, 

 limbs but they walk not. This body is a failure. 

 Why does the human infant lie like a log on the 

 forest-bed while its nimble prototype mocks it 

 from the bough above ? Why did that which is 

 not human step out into life so long before that 

 which is ? 



The question has been answered for us by Mr. 

 John Fiske, and the world here owes to him one 

 of the most beautiful contributions ever made to 

 the Evolution of Man. We know what this delay 

 means ethically — it was necessary for moral train- 

 ing that the human child should have the longest 

 possible time by its Mother's side — but what deter- 

 mines it on the physical side? The thing that 

 constitutes the difference between the baby monkey 

 and the baby man is an extra piece of machinery 

 which the last possesses and the first does not. 

 It is this which is keeping back the baby man. 

 What is that piece of machinery? A brain, a 

 human brain. The child, nevertheless, is not using it. 

 Why? Because it is not quite fitted up. Nature 



