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thought that I assert that natural selection does not 
produce brain development among animals. It does. 
The crow is, in this respect, an enormous advance on the 
oyster. What I maintain is that, seeing the importance 
of the brain, we might have expected that this would 
have been developed in animals in preference to the 
other organs of the body. Yet it is the physical rather 
than the mental parts of animals which have been 
developed. Can we explain this phenomenon? 
Herbert Spencer attributes the great development of 
the brain of man to the fact that he possesses a hand— 
an organ whereby he is able to appreciate space in three 
dimensions, and to understand the nature of solids, 
Every animal, which is not gifted with a grasping organ, 
possesses but a small degree of intelligence. This 
assertion, however, even if true, does not explain much. 
For we naturally ask, Why have not all creatures 
developed grasping organs? 
It seems to me that the secret of the lack of brain 
power of animals lies in the fact that the brain is an 
organ which takes long to reach maturity, and which, in 
the early stages of development, is not of great use to 
its possessor. It is scarcely necessary to adduce proof 
of these two assertions. It is a matter of common 
observation that, long after a man begins to decay 
physically, his brain continues to develop. While we 
may take half a dozen new-born babes, who are poten- 
tially the cleverest men in the world, and set these upon 
an uninhabited island and they will surely die, in spite 
of their large brains. Dame Nature takes into account 
only the present value of an organ. She selects those 
