164 Sioux City Academy of Science and Letters. 



membranes like those which supersede gills in birds and 

 reptiles. It has a movable tail at the end of its back- 

 bone, longer than its lower limbs. When its feet are 

 first developed the great toe is opposable to the other 

 toes, as the thumb is to the fingers on the hand, and we 

 recognize the climbing-monkey; when it is six months 

 old its body is entirely covered with thick hair, except 

 on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. Is 

 there not in all these changes, through which we have 

 all passed, an indication, a review of all the evolutionary 

 changes through which living beings have passed before? 

 I cannot understand it in any other way. 



Now, just a few words as to the operation of in- 

 stinct in the animal and reason in the man in the per- 

 petuation of species. In all living beings we find the 

 structure and instinct of the young when combined with 

 that of the parent just sufficient to give all needed 

 chances for the young generation to reach maturity so 

 that the race shall be preserved. That is, these elements 

 are supplementary to each other. In the lower orders 

 of life, where instinct alone is given to the young, and 

 when parent and young never see each other, instinct 

 alone is not sufficient for the survival of all, and so the 

 number of individuals from a single birth is increased. 

 As we ascend in the order of being, where instinct may 

 be combined with experience of both young and parent, 

 the number of individuals becomes less. When we reach 

 the highest order, man, where reason is added to in- 

 stinct, and the young are able to profit by the past ex- 

 perience of the race through the mother, then instinct 

 is reduced to its lowest term. The instinct of the human 

 infant is least of all the animals, but it is continually 

 supplemented and helped by the care of the mother 

 guided by reason and the experience of the race. The 

 codfish produces each year more than a million of eggs, 

 and the young are guided in their future life entirelj^ by 

 instinct, never knowing a parent. Not more than one 

 in a hundred thousand ever reach maturity. The young 

 of the human race will not average more than two to 

 each family, of which, possibly, one may reach maturity, 

 and this is only possible by reason of the care of the 

 parents extending over a long series of years. The in- 



