With this genesis of the family, the Creation of Man may be said, in a certain sense, to have been completed.  The great extent of cerebral surface, the lengthened period of infancy, the consequent capacity for progress, the definite constitution of the family, and the judgment of actions as good or bad according to some other standard than that of selfish desire,—­these are the attributes which essentially distinguish Man from other creatures.  All these, we see, are direct or indirect results of the revolution which began when natural selection came to confine itself to psychical variations, to the neglect of physical variations.  The immediate result was the increase of cerebrum.  This prolonged the infancy, thus giving rise to the capacity for progress; and infancy, in turn, originated the family and thus opened the way for the growth of sympathies and of ethical feelings.  All these results have perpetually reacted upon one another until a creature different in kind from all other creatures has been evolved.  The creature thus evolved long since became dominant over the earth in a sense in which none of his predecessors ever became dominant; and henceforth the work of evolution, so far as our planet is concerned, is chiefly devoted to the perfecting of this last and most wonderful product of creative energy.

X.

Improvableness of Man.

For the creation of Man was by no means the creation of a perfect being.  The most essential feature of Man is his improvableness, and since his first appearance on the earth the changes that have gone on in him have been enormous, though they have continued to run along in the lines of development that were then marked out.  The changes have been so great that in many respects the interval between the highest and the lowest men far surpasses quantitatively the interval between the lowest men and the highest apes.  If we take into account the creasing of the cerebral surface, the difference between the brain of a Shakespeare and that of an Australian savage would doubtless be fifty times greater than the difference between the Australian’s brain and that of an orang-outang.  In mathematical capacity the Australian, who cannot tell the number of fingers on his two hands, is much nearer to a lion or wolf than to Sir Rowan Hamilton, who invented the method of quaternions.  In moral development this same Australian, whose language contains no words for justice and benevolence, is less remote from dogs and baboons than from a Howard or a Garrison.  In progressiveness, too, the difference between the lowest and the highest races of men is no less conspicuous.  The Australian is more teachable than the ape, but his limit is nevertheless very quickly reached.  All the distinctive attributes of Man, in short, have been developed to an enormous extent through long ages of social evolution.