stationary period an age of maturity in the remote ancestors of our
race, when the young of our species, who were perhaps pygmoid, shifted
for themselves independently of further parental aid. The qualities
developed during pre-adolescence are, in the evolutionary history of
the race, far older than hereditary traits of body and mind which
develop later and which may be compared to a new and higher story
built upon our primal nature. Heredity is so far both more stable and
more secure. The elements of personality are few, but are well
organised on a simple, effective plan. The momentum of these traits
inherited from our indefinitely remote ancestors is great, and they
are often clearly distinguishable from those to be added later. Thus
the boy is father of the man in a new sense, in that his qualities are
indefinitely older and existed, well compacted, untold ages before the
more distinctly human attributes were developed. Indeed there are a
few faint indications of an earlier age node, at about the age of six,
as if amid the instabilities of health we could detect signs that this
may have been the age of puberty in remote ages of the past. I have
also given reasons that lead me to the conclusion that, despite its
dominance, the function of sexual maturity and procreative power is
peculiarly mobile up and down the age-line independently of many of
the qualities usually so closely associated with it, so that much that
sex created in the phylum now precedes it in the individual.

Rousseau would leave prepubescent years to nature and to these primal
hereditary impulsions and allow the fundamental traits of savagery
their fling till twelve. Biological psychology finds many and cogent
reasons to confirm this view _if only a proper environment could be
provided_. The child revels in savagery; and if its tribal, predatory,
hunting, fishing, fighting, roving, idle, playing proclivities could
be indulged in the country and under conditions that now, alas! seem