Mating, marriage, and the status of woman / by James Corin.

  • Corin, James.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Mating, marriage, and the status of woman / by James Corin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    20/204 (page 4)
    To ascribe such improvement to an accumu- lation of fortuitous variations leaves the origin of the variations unexplained. To suppose the brain an endowment from “ some higher power ” is not an admissible scientific theory. The improvement must be accounted for on natural grounds. The cause must be sought in the conditions of man’s environment. Population always outgrowing means of subsistence is a fundamental law of the struggle for existence. To increase in num- bers implies success, and so fertility becomes the ruling instinct. How important a role it has occupied in man’s development may be gathered from the fact that the maxim, “ increase and multiply,” has been promul- gated as a divine command. But numerical increase without the ability to obtain addi- tional subsistence is no advantage. Victory lies with those who can combine breeding- ability with feeding-ability. To obtain the necessary additional subsistence has been the factor which stimulated the brain ; and victory has gone to those whose brain most successfully responded to it: they could live where their competitors starved ; they could go on increasing in numbers. Man has done this, and the apes have failed. It may be