The Part played by Infancy 109 



will say, with very little hesitation, that if it were 

 not for our period of infancy we should not be 

 progressive. If we came into the world with our 

 capacities all cut and dried, one generation would 

 be very much like another. 



Then, looking round to see what are the other 

 points which are most important in which man 

 differs from the lower animals, there comes that 

 matter of the family. The family has adumbra- 

 tions and foreshadowings among the lower ani- 

 mals, but in general it may be said that while 

 mammals lower than man are gregarious, in man 

 have become established those peculiar relation- 

 ships which constitute what we know as the fam- 

 ily ; and it is easy to see how the existence of 

 helpless infants would bring about just that state 

 of things. The necessity of caring for the infants 

 would prolong the period of maternal affection, 

 and would tend to keep the father and mother and 

 children together, but it would tend especially to 

 keep the mother and children together. This busi- 

 ness of the marital relations was not really a thing 

 that became adjusted in the primitive ages of man, 

 but it has become adjusted in the course of civili- 

 zation. Real monogamy, real faithfulness of the 

 male parent, belongs to a comparatively advanced 

 stage ; but in the early stages the knitting together 



