176 BOMBAY DUCKS 



thought that I assert that natural selection does not 

 produce brain development among animals. It does. 

 The crow is, in this respect, an enormous advance on the 

 oyster. What I maintain is that, seeing the importance 

 of the brain, we might have expected that this would 

 have been developed in animals in preference to the 

 other organs of the body. Yet it is the physical rather 

 than the mental parts of animals which have been 

 developed. Can we explain this phenomenon ? 



Herbert Spencer attributes the great development of 

 the brain of man to the fact that he possesses a hand 

 an organ whereby he is able to appreciate space in three 

 dimensions, and to understand the nature of solids. 

 Every animal, which is not gifted with a grasping organ, 

 possesses but a small degree of intelligence. This 

 assertion, however, even if true, does not explain much. 

 For we naturally ask, Why have not all creatures 

 developed grasping organs ? 



It seems to me that the secret of the lack of brain 

 power of animals lies in the fact that the brain is an 

 organ which takes long to reach maturity, and which, in 

 the early stages of development, is not of great use to 

 its possessor. It is scarcely necessary to adduce proof 

 of these two assertions. It is a matter of common 

 observation that, long after a man begins to decay 

 physically, his brain continues to develop. While we 

 may take half a dozen new-born babes, who are poten- 

 tially the cleverest men in the world, and set these upon 

 an uninhabited island and they will surely die, in spite 

 of their large brains. Dame Nature takes into account 

 only the present value of an organ. She selects those 



