The Meaning of Evolution

by Samuel Christian Schmucker

CHAPTER VII

How the Mammals Developed

When the idea of evolution first began to be much discussed, especially after the publication of the "Origin of Species," there were several points which appeared to be more than commonly difficult of explanation. It did not seem impossible that the various types of domesticated cattle should have descended from a common ancestor. It did not seem difficult of comprehension that the dog might once have been a wolf. Though not quite so credible, it did not seem absurd that the tigers, lions, and leopards should have once all been alike. The resemblance between these are strong enough to make the idea seem conceivable. Though men were willing to concede this much, they insisted that the great branches of the animal kingdom varied so widely from each other as to make it certain that each was a separate creation. It was particularly objected that the mammals differed so entirely from other animals in several important particulars that a special divine act was necessary for their appearance. The mammals have a furry covering entirely different from the clothing of any other animal in the kingdom, and have warm blood, which is found nowhere else except among the birds. But particularly their method of producing their young seemed so entirely different from that of any other group that here a special creation was deemed absolutely necessary.

Other young creatures are produced from eggs laid by the parent and subsequently hatched. The young of the mammals are born alive and comparatively well developed. In addition, their first food, the milk of the mother, is so entirely different from the food of any other creature that this again seemed to involve a separate creation. Gradually we have come to understand the whole matter of reproduction very much better. Minute and careful dissections of rabbits, of dogs and cats, of animals slaughtered for food, with occasional post-mortem examinations of human beings in various stages of the development of the young, leave us no longer in doubt concerning the main features of the process. The better we come to understand it the more clearly it becomes evident that in the development of the mammals we have no new procedure, but, as in so many other activities, new developments of an old process.

There are two entirely different methods by which new animals and plants may arise. One sees sometimes in the home of a friend a geranium of particular beauty, the like of which he would be glad to possess. The accommodating friend cuts a small piece from the geranium. This is stuck into poor but well-watered ground, develops roots, and eventually grows into a geranium stalk exactly like the one from which it came and of which it is in reality only a detached part.

In similar fashion, if one wants a particular kind of apple, he never trusts to planting an apple seed. Going to the tree of the variety he desires, he takes from it a small twig provided with a bud and inserts this bud into a cleft made in the young branch of another apple tree. The young bud so inserted starts up into a new branch, resembling almost absolutely, not the tree which feeds it with sap, but the tree from which the bud was originally taken.

When we wish a particular variety of potato we obtain pieces of the potato of the kind we desire. Each of these must contain an eye, which is a bud of the old potato. When the sprout appears the new plant will be practically identical in character with the plant from which the potato was taken. This sort of reproduction, in which a piece of the old parent grows up into the new generation, is called the asexual method. But one parent is concerned in the process, and the offspring are as nearly as may be like the parent from which they arose.

The gardener who wishes to obtain new varieties is not content with this method. If he plant the seed of the potato the outcome will be most uncertain. His seed must be taken, of course, from the fruit of the potato, and most of these plants never fruit. Every grower of large quantities of potatoes will have noticed occasionally, on the tops of the plant, after the flowers disappear, a globular growth looking not unlike a small tomato, but with a tendency to become purplish green in color. This is the fruit of the potato and in it are the seeds. When these are planted all sorts of potatoes are liable to start up. Most of them will prove worthless. An occasional seed may produce an uncommonly fine plant. This new variety may thereafter be propagated from the tuber, as the potato itself is called, and the new strain will be kept constant in this way. This method of using the seed for reproducing the plant is called the sexual method, because two parents coöperate in the production of the seed. The pollen came from one parent and the ovule, which after fertilization swelled up into the seed, came from another. By this combination of two individuals new varieties become quite possible. Nature seems to be more concerned in improving her strain than in maintaining her older strains. In all of her lowest plants and animals she uses the asexual method of reproduction. As we go higher in the organic world the two-parent method becomes increasingly common. When we reach the higher animals, and most of the higher plants, this plan of double parenthood, the sexual method, alone is used.

In order that we may the more clearly understand how the mammals produce their young and nourish them, we shall begin at the lowest class of the backboned animals and note how the process is there accomplished. As we pass upward through the kingdom the method acquires greater complexity. When we finally reach the mammals, what at first seemed an absolutely new process will prove to be, as is all of nature's work with which we are thoroughly acquainted, but a modification and an elaboration of some previously existing process.

Some time ago I was passing the early months of summer by the side of a lake in northern Pennsylvania. Near my tent, on the edge of the water, was a wharf from which it was possible to look down into the shallows about the edge of the lake. In early July the bottom began to take on a strange appearance. Spots as big as a dinner plate became evident because they were cleaned of the finer sand or mud which is common on the bottom. A close examination showed that each of these circular spots was being occupied and cleaned up by a sunfish. The pebbles were lifted into the mouth of the fish and driven out again with force. The water which emerged with the stones seemed to wash away the dirt, while the pebbles themselves became gradually cleaned of the green plant life which ordinarily covers them. After the process was completed each spot was saucer-shaped and free from scum and mud. Over each of these spots hovered the sunfish which made it, and round and round the fish swam. The circles thus traversed were so near each other that every now and then the occupants of two adjoining nests would meet on the border. The fish which was most nearly on its own ground would at once attack the other and drive him away. In a few days the other partner in each family seemed to appear. Now two fishes swam side by side over each nest, bringing the lower edge of their bodies comparatively close together. In this position they moved around over the pebbly bottom. The female was discharging her multitudinous and very small eggs, so that they dropped to the bottom of the nest. At the same time the male was expelling what in fish is known as the milt. In this milt are the sperm cells of the male, each consisting of a rounded head and a very slender body. These are attracted by the eggs. Pushing up against them, the head of a sperm cell, consisting almost entirely of the nucleus of the cell and carrying the determinants which were to decide one-half of its future characters, penetrated this egg and fused with its nucleus. This was filled with the determinants of the characters inherited from the mother. Of course many of the eggs, of which probably there are a thousand, must have escaped fertilization. There are doubtless a thousand sperm cells that went to utter waste for one which found an egg to fertilize. These eggs nestled in the crevices between the stones in the warm water of the edge of the lake. Here the sun could easily penetrate to the bottom and hatch them. The little fish, still guarded by one hovering parent, swam around in the water long before the yolk of the egg, containing its large amount of food, had been absorbed into the tissues of the young fish. This fatty store made the abdomen of the fish in which it lay protrude enormously. Gradually the fish grew larger and the yolk grew smaller until all had been consumed. Soon the fish began to forage for himself and no longer to demand or care for the company and protection of its parent. The little sunfish is highly favored among his comrades in having any care whatever by the parent. In the case of most fishes the female, swimming slowly over the bottom, deposits her eggs, which are fertilized by the male, which follows behind her. After the eggs have thus been laid and quickened no other attention is paid to them by either of the parents.

Fish are stupid almost beyond the comprehension of those who are not students of the minds of animals. Frogs and toads are a distinct step in advance, and hence their mental activities play a larger part in the process.

In the love-making of the frogs and toads the song has an important share. In each species the voice is a little different from that of any other. In our familiar garden toad we have an excellent illustration of the method common to the entire group. When spring comes an impulse seems to stir in all the toads of a neighborhood. Heretofore they have stuck faithfully to dry ground; now they start off for the water. Whether their impulse is simply to move down hill or whether they by some means detect the near presence of water, I cannot say. Certainly a new fountain on a lawn will secure in spring its prompt and full share of the neighborhood's toads. In any event the toads of a district congregate in great numbers in any pond or along the edge of any moderate stream. Within a short time their flutelike, quivering voice is heard far and wide. That this note has an attractive power over the female there is no doubt. She herself makes no effort to imitate, but the song of her mate is persistent and exceedingly sweet. I have seen a male sit upon a clump of grass and utter his love call. Before he had been singing for more than half a minute three females hastened toward him from a distance of perhaps twenty feet. Each seemed anxious to reach as promptly as possible the creature whose voice had proved so attractive. When the mating comes, the female discharges a series of small shotlike eggs which are encased in a very tenacious mucous. While they are being deposited the male fertilizes them. No sooner have the eggs, fertilized by the sperm cells, reached the water than the mucous at once begins to swell. The result is that eggs appear encased in two slender strings of jelly, each having a diameter about that of a lead pencil. At intervals of not more than half an inch the shotlike eggs may be seen. The mother toad, in laying these eggs, moves about rather restlessly in the water. By this means she succeeds in wrapping the strings about the grass and sticks of the pool. This will hold them quite safely even against a considerable current of water, should the stream rise and flood the side pools in which the eggs are laid. With this amount of care, however, the attention of both parents to the young entirely ceases. They are now abandoned to the chances of a fortune to them exceedingly unkind. A toad will lay about five hundred eggs. It is evident that on the average only two of these can attain maturity by the time the parents have died, for the number of toads does not materially alter season by season. The connecting string is made up not of nourishment for the eggs, but of a bitter mucous so unpleasant to the taste that fish are thus deterred from eating the otherwise nourishing material. This secures for the young embryo a chance to mature which in the absence of the jelly it would entirely lack. Imbedded in this mucous is the embryo itself, surrounded by a small amount of albumen and containing inside of itself a very considerable amount of yolk. This gives to the egg a volume possibly a hundred times that of the egg of the sunfish. Thus, even counting the care the parent sunfish took of its offspring, which care is very uncommon among fishes, the toad stands a distinctly better chance in life. The protection of the bitter mucous and the large amount of yolk permitting considerably larger development before leaving the egg, give to the toad a material advantage. When the toad first emerges from the egg it is amazingly like the fish. It has gills at the side of its neck and swims by the movement of its tail. Later its limbs develop, the hind ones coming first, its tail is absorbed, and it is now a true toad, ready to leave the water.

Altogether a higher state of reproduction is encountered when we reach the reptiles, which are the next higher class of backboned animals. Here very distinct developments of the process are discovered. The turtle, to use the best known illustration, may lay but twenty eggs. But she will not lay them at random in the water, as do the toads and the fish. Each egg is wonderfully fattened with yolk. This means that it is possible for the creature to develop to a far greater extent before leaving the egg than was possible in the case of the toad. Accordingly the little turtle, while it begins life not unlike a fish and goes through the gilled and tailed period, during which it is not unlike a tadpole, passes beyond this period before leaving the shell and has already acquired its full turtle characters when first it steps upon the scene. So big an egg as this would be highly nutritious and animals would desire it immensely for food. Hence it becomes necessary for the turtle to securely hide her eggs. In order to do this, she scoops out a pit in the sand in which she deposits them and here they develop. If no further provisions were made the eggs of the turtle would dry completely and never hatch. Accordingly it becomes necessary for the turtle to enclose each egg in a tough, leathery membrane, known as the shell. Because the egg is thus encased it is necessary for it to be fertilized before being laid. Accordingly the male must place the sperm cells within the body of the female. These cells swim nearly to the top of the tubes in which they are placed, and there fertilize the descending eggs. Farther down the canal the shell is secreted about the now swollen mass of yolk and white, completing the egg just before it leaves the parent.

If the evolutionist understands properly the line of descent, the birds and mammals are both the descendants of the reptiles. While there is less exterior resemblance between a chicken and a turtle than between a cat and a turtle, the real relationship in the first case is much closer than in the second. This is perhaps most easily seen in the scaly legs of both bird and reptile. Another remarkable resemblance lies in the fact that in both cases the eggs are large, well stored with nourishment, and protected by a resistant shell.

So few people know the turtle's egg that it will be better to describe that of the hen, which it largely resembles. Underneath the hard shell is a tough but flexible membrane which lies against the limey coating, except at the blunt end, where a separation between the two gives room for a bubble of air. Inside of this shell and its membrane lies the white of the egg, which is nourishment for the chick, though not nearly so rich as the yolk. This, besides the albumen which it contains, is stored with large quantities of fat. It will be remembered that upon breaking a hen's egg and dropping it into a bowl, the yolk holds together because it is enclosed in a delicate sac. As the yolk falls into the bowl there floats to the top of it a lighter yellow spot as big as the end of a lead pencil. This is all of the egg which thus far represents the chick itself. All the rest is nourishment. This disk already consists of three reasonably distinguishable layers of cells, which grow rapidly different from each other. They spread and bend and twist, forming the young chick and a set of organs which serve for its protection and maintenance during its embryonic life. Within a few days these accessory organs will have formed distinctly. Within the upper half of the yolk will be found the small developing chick, which for the first thirty-six hours of its development passes through a stage not unlike the fish, or the earlier steps of the turtle. Within a few days it becomes clearly evident that this creature is to be a bird, though it is much longer before it is clearly a chick.

This embryo is so soft that it is almost like curd in thickened milk, and could be very easily destroyed were it not for a protective device which Nature has employed. It seems necessary that it should be protected with the utmost care. The matter will be better understood if we recall a common experience. Almost everyone has tried to dissolve some substance in water in a vial. If the bottle be filled with fluid to the top and corked it is very difficult to shake up the contents. Even vigorous agitation produces little movement of the material on the inside. If we wish to shake up the solid with water the bottle must be left partly empty. The brain of a human being is protected by just the same device. If it simply lay within the skull the first fall would mash the gray substance against the side of the cavity. To prevent this calamity the bony case is made somewhat larger in capacity than the brain itself, and the space between the two is filled with a watery fluid. This serves to prevent jars and shocks. In the hen's egg the same plan is pursued. The embryo lies on the inside of a bag considerably larger than itself. This sac, called the amnion, is filled with a watery fluid. With such a protection only the most severe shock to the egg would sufficiently jar the embryo to do it any harm. The ordinary experiences of an egg leave it undisturbed.

Every living creature requires a constant supply of food and of oxygen. The embryo is a living creature, and is no exception to the rule. It needs an abundant supply of easily assimilated food and of oxygen. When the hen's egg is first laid the entire contents, with the exception of the little light-colored disk which floats on the top of the yolk, form the nourishment. The disk alone is the living organism. In the earliest stages the embryo receives its food by simple absorption from the yolk. As the chick increases in complexity the yolk at first grows swampy, with fluid trickling here and there through the more solid portions. Thin walls form about these little streams, thus producing blood vessels which cover the entire surface of the yolk. These absorb the nourishment and turn it over to the embryo. As the latter grows in size both the yolk and white diminish. The embryo soon becomes larger than the remaining yolk and is attached to it by a cord filled with blood vessels which enter the chick near the center of its body. The abdominal wall has an opening at this point. One of the later occurrences in the life of the chick, before it breaks through the egg, is to have the last remnant of the yolk and its sac slip to the inside of the abdomen, which then completely closes over it.

As yet, we have seen no arrangement for furnishing air to the chick. At the same point at which the blood vessels from the yolk enter the chick, another set of vessels pass in and out. These are attached to a large flattened bag which floats above the embryo against the upper side of the shell. This bag is called the allantois, and serves as a sort of lung for the developing chick. The shell is porous enough to allow air to pass through it. The blood vessels of the allantois take in oxygen and give out carbon dioxide through the porous shell. The blood thus altered is returned to the chick and serves its life purposes. One of the reasons why the chicken must turn its eggs in the nest is that, if the allantois remain too long in contact with the upper shell of the egg, it will become attached to it and will not thereafter perform its functions.

The embryo thus enclosed in the egg finds its protection in the fact that it is encased in a fluid contained in the amnion. It draws its nourishment from the yolk upon which it lives and the nourishment is transmitted to it by blood vessels. It draws its oxygen and throws off its wastes through the instrumentality of the allantois, which covers it over. Day by day the chick becomes larger, day by day it grows to look more like what it is to be. By the nineteenth day it appears to be complete. Its nervous organization is, however, not thoroughly developed. If removed from the shell the chick still is indisposed to stand upon its feet or to run about. If allowed to remain in the egg until the twenty-first day, the chick will be able to push its beak through the skin enclosing the bubble of air at the blunt end of the egg and get the first breath into its lungs. Now it gives a faint peep, breaks the shell of the egg, and steps out into the open air.

I have given this somewhat lengthened description of the development of the chick because of the light it throws upon the method pursued by the mammals. The features which have been described in the case of the chicken's egg could be as fully observed in the case of the turtle or any of the other reptiles. Mammals are descended from the reptiles of the Mesozoic, and whatever peculiarities there may be in their method of producing their young must be derived from the reptiles. If we wish to know how the earliest mammals produced their young, we can only judge by the lowliest members of the group that live upon the earth to-day. The most primitive of these is the so-called Duckmole, of Australia. This little creature has habits not unlike those of the muskrat. It burrows in the bank of a stream, and makes a nest at the end of the burrow, where it lays its eggs. This is one of the very few warm-blooded, hair-covered animals which still lays eggs. A little higher in the scale stand the kangaroo and the opossum. These creatures keep the egg inside of the body until it is hatched. But this happens in so short a time that the young animal is exceedingly immature and as yet unable to stand the outside air. Accordingly there is a double fold of skin on the abdomen of the mother, covering her breasts. This forms a suitable resting place into which these young are conveyed as soon as they are born and from which they do not emerge for many days. The little creature instantly fastens upon the nipple of the mother, keeping its mouth constantly in this position. At intervals the muscles of the breast force the milk into the mouth of the young, which is still too undeveloped to suck for itself. As it gets older the little opossum or kangaroo emerges from the pouch in the pleasanter part of the day and in the absence of danger. It returns to the mother's pocket as soon as it becomes cold or a cry from its parent warns it of its defenseless position.

These creatures are the lowliest of the class upon the earth. The great majority of all mammals have elaborated a far finer plan, in which the young are retained within the body of the parent until they are quite able to stand the air. The length of this time varies in different mammals from a few weeks to more than a year. The egg must be fertilized before it leaves the body of the parent. If it should fail in this it simply passes out and is wasted. If the fertilizing cell reaches the egg before it has progressed far down the tube it begins its development. The embryo forms for itself the sort of head and tail and gill slits which would have served its fish or its tadpole ancestor. Its limbs develop as little buds indistinguishable from similar buds that would have formed fins for the fish or wings for the bird.

Around the embryo there forms a sac, the amnion filled with a fluid which serves to protect the young mammals exactly as the growing chick was protected. Under the forming creature there hangs a small but empty yolksac. This is an actual remnant, a reminder of the past, when the eggs of the mammals were also packed with yolk and the growing embryo secured its nourishment exactly as does the maturing chick. But a new method has been provided for the mammal, and consequently the yolksac, though it has not entirely disappeared, has no nutritive content for the growth of the embryo.

The allantois of the chick now gains a new development and an altered function. In the case of the chick it floats against the shell of the egg and absorbs oxygen through the shell. Inside the body of the mammal this is impossible, because the air is too far away. No shell is formed about the egg because it is not to be laid. The tube of the parent's body in which the egg lies becomes thickened at the point of contact with the egg. It grows spongy and full of blood vessels. Meanwhile the allantois is also growing spongy. These two tissues are so closely pressed against each other that the blood vessels of the transformed allantois mesh in with those of the thickened parent wall. Thus the blood vessels of the mother are brought into close contact with those of her offspring. Her blood seeps over into the transformed allantois which is now called a placenta. From this it is handed over to the offspring, which thus receives from the mother her blood, and returns its own used blood for enrichment and purification. So the allantois of the reptile has become the placenta of the mammal. In the first instance it served only as an organ of respiration. Now it has come to supply the embryo with rich blood containing both food and oxygen derived from the mother. After the offspring is born this thickened pad breaks loose, and subsequently is also extruded from the body, forming what is known as the afterbirth.

Thus far we have spoken of the change in the method by which the young are brought to such a stage of development that they can stand the outer air. One of the improved differences between the mammals and other animals lies in the method by which they nourish their young for some time after birth. The very word mammals signifies an animal who is in the true sense of the word a mamma. This name for mother is given to her because of the fact that she possesses what are technically known as mammary glands, or, in simpler language, breasts. It would seem as if here we had an entirely new organ. No other animal gives nourishment to its young in such fashion; all mammals do. What is the origin of the habit? How did the organ arise?

A part of an animal's body that has the power to gather material from the blood and pour it out in the shape of fluid is known as a gland. Sometimes a whole organ does nothing else. Sometimes small glands are scattered through, or over, the surface of another organ. There are two kinds of glands in the skin of the mammal. The best known and most frequently thought of are those which pour out the perspiration. These have a double function. In the first place they assist in keeping the temperature of the body uniform. When we are too warm they pour out a watery fluid over the surface of the body. If the air is dry enough and our body not too closely protected by clothing, this perspiration passes off in the form of vapor. All evaporation requires heat, which in this case is extracted from the body. So soon as the temperature returns to its normal level the flow of perspiration ceases. The other function of the sweat glands is to take from the blood some of the waste matters of the body and pour them out upon the surface. This is done in order that the body may free itself from substances which, if they were to accumulate, would have a poisonous effect upon its action. It is this function of the sweat glands which makes it necessary for us to bathe the surface of our bodies with water. Dirt, in the ordinary sense of the word, is not harmful to a sound skin. Our reason for bathing is really to remove the wastes which we ourselves have poured upon the surface of the skin. These, if allowed to remain, soon decompose, like all nitrogenous substances, and become very offensive. They may then be reabsorbed into the skin and nature's effort to throw them off has been in vain. These glands, since they contain waste matter, could not possibly yield food for the young. They would poison and not nourish. Hence, whatever the breasts may be, they are not altered sweat glands.

There is another set of organs in the mammalian skin. At the base of each hair lies an oil gland. The function of these is to pour out a substance which spreads along each hair and over the surface of the body. The outside of the skin is always dead, and would easily crack were it not for the constant secretion of this oil. In winter, when the blood circulates less freely and these glands consequently pour out less oil, the supply frequently runs short. If what little is poured out is too frequently removed by washing, the skin becomes brittle, and, on bending a joint, the epidermis cracks. The gloss of the hair is due to the oil thus poured out. This oil becomes one ingredient in the milk produced by the transformed gland. But there is another important constituent. When one does unaccustomed manual work the ordinary result is the formation of a blister. The epidermis, or scarfskin, becomes detached from the dermis, or true skin, and the space between the two rapidly fills with the fluid portion of the blood, known as lymph. The fact that no blood vessels have been broken in this detachment results in there being no red corpuscles in this fluid. Wherever a cavity forms in the body lymph is liable to enter it.

The milk glands of the mammals are modified oil glands. The fluid which they now pour out is no longer exactly the old oil with the addition of the lymph. Undoubtedly in the past the first milk was more like this simple mixture. There seems no doubt that the breasts of to-day are the enlarged and modified oil glands of earlier mammals. In one of the most primitive of our mammals the young simply lick certain bare spots on the surface of the mother's abdomen. As higher forms arise there develops a smaller or larger mound with a distinct projection, about which the lips of the offspring can easily fasten. Lamarck would have said that the suction of the infant had produced such a mound, and that this had been transmitted to later offspring until it had grown to be the highly developed organ we now find, for instance, in the cow. Since, however, we have come to disbelieve in the transmission of acquired characters, this explanation will no longer serve. We must content ourselves with saying that, by whatever accident the nipple arose, the success of it when present determined its selection by nature and its consequent persistence. With increase in its function has come increase in the size of the glands. Lower animals which, like the hog, produce a large number of offspring, possess a large number also of these glands. With the diminishing number of young and greater care of them as we rise in the scale has come also a diminishing number of breasts in the female. Whether those on the front of the body should persist, or those on the rear, depends upon other factors in the life of the animal. Hoofed animals, perhaps because their best weapon is the hoof and they can there best protect their young, have retained them in the rear of the body. In the group of animals known as the primates, including monkeys, apes, and man, the habit of holding the young in the arms for protection has determined the persistence of the breasts upon the chest rather than the abdomen.

It is interesting to notice that the habit of the elephant of protecting its young by means of its tusks has also resulted in a similar position of the milk glands.

That the primates had once a larger number of offspring is confirmed by double evidence. Even to-day the number of children at a birth is often two, sometimes three, rarely four. The day before this was written came the report of a case of five children at a birth, all of whom seemed sound and all of whom lived. Still more direct evidence is found in the fact that occasionally in the human female there are two pairs of breasts, and very rarely three pairs. These are then disposed in a double line down the front of the body.

The new plan of caring for the young is one of the priceless heritages of the higher animals. As we rise in the grade of life the number of the young produced at one time steadily diminishes, while the care spent upon them increases. The shad may lay four hundred thousand eggs and trust them entirely to their fate. The sunfish will lay a thousand, by no means all of which can be fertilized, but it guards them somewhat after deposition. The toad lays several hundred, stores them with a considerable amount of nourishment, and protects them by a bitter deposit of mucous. The turtle has reduced the number of eggs to perhaps a score. Each of these is supplied with abundant nourishment, so that the young may develop to considerable size and activity before emerging from the egg. This material is enclosed in a firm protective shell and hidden away from sight by being buried in the ground. In the mammals comparatively few eggs are produced at one time. These are fertilized within the body of the parent, are attached to the parent, and absorb her blood. No shell is needed because nothing will kill the developing offspring that is not likely to injure the parent. Not only do the young feed upon the blood of the mother up to the time of birth, but they are practically dependent upon this same blood after birth. Though they do not take it directly from the veins, the milk is, none the less, the transformed blood of the mother. This assures the young of food as well as of protection. Best of all, the young are provided with the companionship of the mother. Now for the first time animals learn by example. Heretofore they have been born with a nearly undeviating instinct; now intelligence begins to arise. They can imitate their mother. Heretofore no acquired characters affected the young. In the mammals, although the young cannot inherit the acquired habits of the parents, they can get them by imitation, which serves nearly as well.

There is, however, a more wonderful advantage that comes from the close attachment between mother and offspring. This intimate relationship brings about an affection of the mother for her young heretofore unknown in the animal world. It is somewhat paralleled among birds, but here the care of the nestling is less intimate, far less maternal, than the care of the mammal for her young. As the number of the young grows less and the care taken of them increases, the intensity of the affection also increases. By the time we get as high as the dog or the cat this fondness becomes a fierce, self-sacrificing love. When we come to man, with his high intellectual powers, with his deeper moral sense, we find a wonderful change. This love of the mother for her child has grown into the finest emotion possible to the human heart. It no longer is confined to the dependent life of the child, but follows the offspring through its entire life, guiding, guarding, shaping its destiny, handing on to the child the treasured wisdom of the race. Influenced by the example of the mother, the father comes to have a love for his children. It is not so strong as that of the mother, nor so utterly unselfish, but it is still a noble and exquisite love. Developing in a different direction, the love of the mother for her children grows as civilization advances, and spreads over the father of those children as well. Again reflecting her love, the man finds himself filled with a new feeling for the woman. It is never as unselfish, as free from desire, as is her love, but it completely transforms his relation to her. What has been with him simply desire is ennobled and enriched until it becomes the finest passion of his life, absolutely transforming him, in relation to her, from a selfish brute into a tender and life-long companion. So utterly does the love thus engendered transfigure human life that when we seek to express the divine nature in human terms, and these are the only terms we know how to use, the richest revelation that has come to us is the conception taught by the Master that "God is Love" and that "as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord loveth them that fear him."