ture as the easiest or most economical,
traces of which must then be found in all animal life. When it comes to
the actual test of the theory, that of finding actual cases of
recapitulation in behavior, it fails. No one has been able to point out
just when a child passes through any stage of racial development, and
any attempt to do so has resulted in confusion. There is no clear-cut
marking off into stages, but, instead, overlapping and coexistence of
tendencies characterize the development of the child. The infant of a
few days old may show the swimming movements, but at the same time he
can support his own weight by clinging to a horizontal stick. Which
stage is he recapitulating, that of the fishes or the monkeys? The
nine-year-old boy loves to swim, climb trees, and hunt like a savage all
at the same period, and, what is more, some of these same tendencies
characterize the college man. The late maturing of the sex instinct, so
old and strong in the race, and the early appearing of the tendencies
towards vocalization and grasping, both of late date in the race, are
facts that are hard to explain on the basis of the theory of
recapitulation.

As has been already suggested, one of the most important characteristics
of all these tendencies is their modifiability. The very ease with which
they can be modified suggests that this is what has most often to be
done with them. On examination of the lists of original tendencies there
are none which can be kept and fixed in the form in which they first
appear. Even the best of them are crude and impossible from the
standpoint of civilized society. Take as an illustration mother-love;
what are the original tendencies and behavior? "All women possess
originally, from early childhood to death, some interest in human
babies, and a responsiveness to the instinctive looks, calls, gestures,
and cries of infancy and childhood, being satisfied by childish
gurglings, smiles, and affectionate gestures, and moved to instinctive
comforting acts of childish signs of pain, grief, and misery." But the
mother has to learn not to cuddle the baby and talk to it all the time
it is awake and not to run to it and take it up at every cry, to steel
her heart against the wheedling of the coaxing gurgles and even to allow
the baby to hurt himself, all for his own good. This comes about only as
original nature is modified in line with knowledge and ideals. The same
need is evidenced by such a valuable t