"[A]
[Footnote A: Seelye: Christian Missions, p. 154.]
Even though a Lincoln may rise above his hereditary position or his
surroundings, they are the school in which he is trained; the
gymnasium in which his mental and moral fibre is strengthened.
Family and social life form thus the element of man's environment by
which he is mostly moulded, and to which he most naturally and
completely conforms. Let us therefore briefly trace the origin of
this new element of man's environment, and then notice the effect
upon him of conformity to its laws, and see whither these would lead
him.
We have already seen that intra-uterine development of the young was
being carried ever farther by mammals, and we found one explanation
of this in the fact that each mammalian egg represented a large
amount of nutriment, and that the mammal had very little material to
spare for reproduction. Very possibly, too, the newly hatched
mammals were exposed to even more numerous and greater dangers than
the young of birds. Even among lower mammals the young is feeble at
birth. But the human infant is absolutely helpless. And the centre
of its helplessness is its brain. Its eyes and ears are
comparatively perfect, but its perceptions are very dim. Its muscles
are all present, but it must very slowly and gradually learn to use
them.
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