III.] Dr. Bateman on Darwinism. 47 



and increasing number of combinations have to be 

 adjusted after birth ; and thus arise the phenomena 

 of infancy. Among mammalia the point at which 

 this change becomes observable lies between the true 

 monkeys and the man-like apes. The orang-outang 

 is unable to walk until a month old, and its period 

 of babyhood lasts considerably longer. 



The establishment of infancy is the most important 

 among the series of events which resulted in the gene- 

 sis of man. For, on the one hand, the prolongation 

 of this period of immaturity had for its direct effect 

 the liberation of intelligence from the shackles of 

 rigid conservatism by which the unchecked influence 

 of heredity had hitherto confined it. On the other 

 hand, as its indirect effect, the prolongation of the 

 period of helplessness served to inaugurate social life 

 by establishing the family, and thus prepared the way 

 for the development of the moral sense. It is by 

 following out this line of inquiry that we shall eluci- 

 date the question of the causes of man's enormous 

 intellectual superiority over his nearest zoological 

 congeners. Meanwhile, and until further light shall 

 have been thrown upon such incidental questions as 

 the inventiveness displayed in the origin of language, 

 the Darwinian is in nowise debarred, by any logical 

 necessity of his position, from fully recognising the 



