386 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



What then was wanting for the perfecting of 

 the domestic tie, and how did Evolution secure it? 

 In the animal creation, we have already witnessed 

 the methods which Nature took to get more care 

 out of little care, to make a short-lived sympathy 

 grow into a great sympathy. Her method was 

 first, concentration ; and second, extension of time. 

 By giving a Mother one or two young to care for 

 instead of a hundred, she made care practicable, 

 and by lengthening the period of infancy from 

 hours to years she made it inevitable. And these 

 are again her methods in perfecting love between 

 man and wife. By abolishing the pairing season 

 she lengthened the time for love to grow in ; 

 the next step is to perfect the object on which it 

 shall focus. For there was again the same sort of 

 barrier to a full-blown love which we saw before in 

 the animal kingdom. An animal mother could not 

 truly love in the early days because she had a 

 hundred or a thousand young. Man could not 

 love in the early days because he had a dozen 

 wives. This love was too diluted to come to 

 anything. What Evolution next worked at 

 was to get a quintessence. Polygamy, in other 

 words, the scattered love of many, must, from this 

 time forward, be changed into monogamy — the 

 absorbing love of one. And this transposition was 



