EVOLUTION AND PSYCHOLOGY 



is let alone or isolated from the influence of 

 grown-ups, whose presence always tends to the 

 elimination of these archaic elements, and in all 

 cases makes havoc with them, over-repressing 

 some that should have their brief fling, if only 

 on the principle of the Aristotehan catharsis, to 

 give early immunity from the hypertrophy of 

 bestial traits by awakening the next higher pow- 

 ers that repress them in their nascent period ; but 

 which, in some environments, are left to grow into 

 faults and then into juvenile crimes, which they 

 are prone to do just in proportion as the order of 

 their nascency is perverted. Thus the problem 

 of a true mentally, esthetically and morally or- 

 thopedic education still gropes in the trial and 

 error stage, although not without some progress 

 toward a scientific basis for pedagogy which, if 

 it ever comes, can rest on no other foundation 

 than a well-established embryology of the soul, 

 all the way from eugenics and the psychic states 

 and regimen of pregnancy on to the fully ma- 

 tured nubihty of the offspring. Thus, from one 

 point of view, infancy, childhood, and youth are 

 three bunches of keys to unlock the past history 

 of the race. Many of the keys, especially those 

 which belong to the oldest bunch, are lost and 

 others are in all stages of rust and decay. Many 

 of the phyletic locks which they fit are also lost 

 or broken; both locks and keys are often dis- 

 torted and, to change the figure, the sequences 

 which the race followed are often inverted in the 



