122 THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



the brain of the higher mammals, the differences in intelligent 

 behavior are very marked. The most intelligent animal is 

 probably in the mental condition of the young baby or the very 

 low grade moron, and this despite the possession of instincts 

 which often enable the most astonishing adjustments to en- 

 vironment. 



FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN INTELLIGENCE 



One of the speakers in this course raised a question, which 

 has enjoyed a good deal of attention, and to which a further 

 word may perhaps be added in this connection. Is the evo- 

 lutionary process at an end so far as concerns the human brain 

 and human intelligence? In the nature of the case no dog- 

 matic reply can be offered with confidence and one must fall 

 back upon the probabilities of the case. I cannot altogether 

 sympathize with the somewhat definite negative opinion occa- 

 sionally advanced, for such negation has its chief justification 

 in the vast extent of time throughout which little or no demon- 

 strable advance has occurred in the organization of the human 

 brain and therefore presumably in human intelligence. One 

 cannot challenge the fact that for many thousands of years 

 there has been little or no such change ; but, on the other hand, 

 the period of time for which we have such evidence, twenty or 

 thirty thousand years, is so trifling compared to the total life 

 of the race and the total duration of life itself on this planet, 

 that a prediction based on such a relatively insignificant seg- 

 ment of man's history seems highly precarious. Assuming 

 some extra-mundane observer of the primeval slime out of 

 which organic life has come, it would certainly have seemed 

 to such an one grotesque to predict such changes as have actu- 

 ally come to pass, and particularly as regards intelligence. 

 Similarly it is entirely impossible to surmise at what point 

 progress beyond present human capacities may occur, but to 



