46 Dr. Bateman on Darwinism. [m. 



follows, with equal cogency, that when this point is 

 reached an entirely new chapter is opened in the his- 

 tory of the evolution of life. A race which maintains 

 itself by psychical variations can never, by natural 

 selection, give rise to a race specifically different 

 from itself in a zoological sense. It may go on adding 

 increments to its intelligence until it evolves Newtons 

 and Beethovens, while its physical structure will 

 undergo but slight and secondary modifications. 

 Obviously the first beginning of such a race of crea- 

 tures, though but a slight affair zoologically, was, in 

 the history of the world, an event quite incomparable 

 in importance with any other instance of specific 

 genesis that ever occurred. It constituted a new 

 departure, so to speak, not inferior in value to the 

 first beginning of organic life. From Mr. Spencer's 

 researches into the organisation of correspondences 

 in the nervous system it follows that the general in- 

 crease of intelligence cannot be carried much farther 

 than it has reached in the average higher mammalia 

 without necessitating the genesis of infancy. The 

 amount of work to be done by the developing 

 nervous system of the offspring, in reproducing the 

 various combinations achieved by the parental 

 nervous system, becomes so considerable that it 

 cannot all be performed before birth. A considerable 



