376 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



eternal individualities of each, the measure of com- 

 pleteness would be gained more quickly for the 

 race. Before heredity, however, could do its work 

 upon the Father a certain basis had to be laid. 

 With his original habits he would squander the 

 hereditary gains as fast as he received them, and 

 unless some change was brought about in his mode 

 of life the old wild blood in his veins would coun- 

 teract the gentler influence, and leave all the 

 Mother's work in vain. Hence Nature had to set 

 about another long and difficult process — to make 

 the savage Father a reformed character. 



The Evolution of a Father is not so beautiful 

 a process as the Evolution of a Mother, but it was 

 almost as formidable a problem to attack. As 

 much depended on it, as we shall see, as the 

 training of the mother ; and though it began later, 

 it required the bringing about of one or two 

 changes in Nature as novel as any that preceded 

 it. When the work was begun, the Father was 

 in a much worse plight, so far as training for 

 family life was concerned, than the Mother. If 

 Maternity was at a feeble level in the lower 

 reaches of Nature, Paternity was non-existent. 

 Among a few Invertebrates the male parent took 

 a passing share in the care of the ^g^, but it is 

 not until we are all but at the top that fatherly in- 



