COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



But a special reason may be assigned why Na- 

 ture, which never makes long jumps, must have 

 been incapable of making this particular jump. 

 Throughout the animal kingdom the period 

 of infancy is correlated with feelings of parental 

 affection, sometimes confined to the mother, 

 but often shared by the father, as in the case 

 of animals which mate. Where, as among the 

 lower animals, there is no infancy, there is 

 no parental affection. Where the infancy is 

 very short, the parental feeling, though intense 

 while it lasts, presently disappears, and the off- 

 spring cease to be distinguished from strangers 

 of the same species. And in general the dura- 

 tion of the feelings which ensure the protection 

 of the offspring is determined by the duration 

 of the infancy. The agency of natural selection 

 in maintaining this balance is too obvious to 

 need illustration. Hence, if long infancies could 

 have suddenly come into existence among a 

 primitive race of ape-like men, the race would 

 have quickly perished from inadequate persist- 

 ence of the parental affections. The prolonga- 

 tion must therefore have been gradual, and the 

 same increase of intelligence to which it was 

 due must also have prolonged the correlative 

 parental feelings, by associating them more and 



concerned. See Mr. Wallace's interesting experience with an 

 infant orang-outang in his Malay Archipelago, vol. i. pp. 

 68-71. 



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