The child : a study in the evolution of man / by Alexander F. Chamberlain.

  • Alexander Francis Chamberlain
Date:
1900
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The child : a study in the evolution of man / by Alexander F. Chamberlain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    the very young child so impressed themselves upon them that their real meaning was undiscovered. Indeed, the play of the active boy and girl was earlier and more correcdy interpreted than the enforced inactivity of the infant. Mythology, and, later, false theology, complicated the subject, and when science grew to be strong it almost forgot the little child in the multi- tude of its other interesting and absorbing subjects of research. Prolongation of Human Infajicy.—Nevertheless, as Professor Butler has recently pointed out, the doctrine of the prolonga- tion of human infancy, which Professor John Fiske has so ably shown to be part of the theory of evolution, was anticipated by Anaximander of Miletus, who flourished about 565 b.c. Professor Butler's discovery, however, was itself anticipated by Burnet in his Early Greek Philosophy (95, p. 74) by a couple of years. Burnet, after quoting the Theophrastean account of the speculations of Anaximander concerning the origin of man,—' Further, he says that in the beginning man was born from animals of a different species' [was like a fish in the begin- ning]. ' His reason is, that, while other animals quickly find food for themselves, man alone requires a prolonged period of suckling. Hence, had he been originally such as he is now, he could never have survived,'—observes 'the reference to the long period of nursing required by the offspring of the human race really contains a very acute piece of scientific reasoning.' But the credit of the scientific interpretation of the prolonga- tion of human infancy is still due to Professor John Fiske, who, in his Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, which was published in 1874, was the first to indicate its true significance in the evolu- tion of humanity. Darwin, with overwhelming evidence, had shown how man's physical organism had evolved from the creatures beneath him, the anthropoid apes being his nearest congeners; Wallace had shown how the next fact to exhibit the operation of natural selection in the development of man was his intelligence, whose variations now began to be of more importance and utility than mere variations of bodily structure. Instead of brute force, mental acuteness enabled man to sur- vive, and his intelligence spent itself in the invention of devices (clothing, implements and weapons, food preparation, etc.), which became his salvation to a greater extent than had been hairy covering, strong limb, or fleetness of foot; he was learn- ing how to live by his wits. Naturally enough, as his intelli- gence continued to augment, the skilful hand and the new-born