Conclusion 101 



The infantile condition as such explains many adjustments that 

 natural selection might have insisted upon — the early dependence, 

 both physical and mental, upon the mother; the later larger 

 degree of self-care and self-protection, through fearfulness, shy- 

 ness, greediness, and selfishness. Then there is the necessity of 

 preparing for the adult condition — the spontaneous interest in 

 self-practice, the close correlation of mental need and maturing 

 structure as exhibited in the succession of interests, followed by 

 the palpably preparatory conditions of puberty and adolescence. 

 Finally there remains the small group of vestiges and "recapit- 

 ulatory" cases referring to ancestral infantile necessities or 

 adult preparation no longer required. 



The period of infancy can have then no single explanation. 

 Many factors have conspired to give it its peculiar character. 

 As time passes we may be able to speak of these with greater 

 assurance. For the moment we may conclude with reason- 

 able certainty that infancy is not as such older than maturity; 

 from the same starting point the two evolved together, the one 

 giving character to the other by reason of those improvements 

 which have entered upon the horizon of later evolution — those, 

 namely, of intelligence and sociability. Infancy is obviously 

 incomplete; it is older, apparently, only in the degree, yet to be 

 determined, in which the growth of intelligence is required to 

 follow a phylogenetic order. 



