918 Evolutionary Significance of Human Character. [ September, 
The preponderance of the osseous and nutritive elements over 
the nervous, is the usual accompaniment of non-impressibility, 
and vice versa. Hence this quality is of late origin in the history 
of the Vertebrata and of man, and is most developed in the 
young, and better developed in women than in men. 
Tenacity has an opposite significance, being an especial charac- 
teristic of maturity in the human mind. Hence it may have been 
more general in early ages than at present, but could have little 
value so long as the mind remained small in quantity. Curiously 
it is a quality which may coéxist with a good deal of impres- 
sibility. 
Fineness can only be a quality of full development, and is 
totally independent of the other qualities. It is unknown among 
savages, and is developed apparently in a few animals. Of inten- 
sity it is difficult to say much definitely. The nervous operations 
of animals often display the highest degree of this quality, and it 
‘is not unlikely that its appearances differ as much in savages as 
in civilized people. Its importance in mental action depends of 
course on the kind and amount of mental function which exhibits 
it. The same may be said of speed. The faculties which exist 
are more or less affected by it. In the well formed reason it is 
an important characteristic, and a special form of development. 
Having gone as far into the origin and developmental relation 
of mental functions and qualities as the nature of this sketch per- 
mits, I refer briefly to the stimulus to their growth ; always re- 
membering that the percentage of inherited qualities is much 
larger in a given character than that of acquired ones. On 
o 
with use more rapidly than those of any other organ of 
human body. Brain and nerve are apparently the most 
all tissues; the one which retains the properties of the pa 
protoplasm, multiplied and intensified a thousand fold. It has T 
d matter 
ways been the seat of creation, throwing off its “ forme 
in useful directions, It is still doing so; and in the aul 
brain ever creating itself, is in addition, the seat of a new creation, 
which it executes through its instruments, the other organs ° 
the body. Hence the greatest sin against the brain is it 
or disuse. The brain activity of to-day is an indication of hea 
and happiness beyond what the world has seen hitherto. 
human 2 
