232 INITIATIVE IN EVOLUTION 



evidence should be produced. Before entering upon this, I think 

 some analogous facts from the story of man, in accordance with the 

 principle laid down in the first chapter should be stated, so as 

 to illustrate the line of thought. These will be in the nature of 

 analogies, and whether or not the accepted accounts of the chosen 

 examples agree precisely with the last word of the critics is 

 immaterial, for if not they will equally well serve the purpose of 

 illustration. 



Abraham. 



When from his Mesopotamian home an opulent and successful 

 farmer decided for reasons sufficient to himself that he would leave 

 his present prosperity for a promised land, and went out not know- 

 ing whither he went, it is manifest that the construction and organi- 

 zation of Abraham's cerebral cortex was the motive power which 

 led to this step so fraught with change to himself, his descendants, 

 and the world. By his choice he showed the inherited structure 

 of his brain, its nature, and perhaps its nurture, to be different 

 from those of his family and tribe. Implicit in this venture was 

 the introduction of a new group of people into a new environment, 

 and their reaction to it through many generations is written before 

 our eyes to-day in indelible characters. It was neither stature, 

 muscular development, colour of hair, skin or eyes, properties of 

 digestive or circulatory organs, keenness of sight, hearing, taste, 

 smell, or touch which led to this result even though without a high 

 degree of efficiency of these he could never have " arrived " as he did. 



Mohammed. 



The conjunction of environment with a certain organized 

 complexity of grey matter was hardly ever more important to the 

 world than that of Mohammed. The powerful frame, abundant 

 black hair, wonderful dark eyes, and great imposing head may 

 well have attracted the rich widow who " made his fortune " by 

 marrying him, and they stood him in good stead in his later adven- 

 turous career. But nothing short of a unique arrangement of his 

 reflex-arcs, chiefly in the association -areas of his brain, could have 

 opened up to him the world of Asia and Europe. 



Columbus. 



Who can doubt that it was ultimately to the inherited structure 

 of the convolutions of his brain that Columbus owed his great 

 achievement in opening up a New World ; or that to the reactionary 

 and intense " character " of Philip's brain the persecutions in the 

 Netherlands were due ; and on the other hand that to the brain 



