a blank, when we were babes and sucklings, when we had not perceived
that men exist, much less that mankind is infinitely complex. A baby comes
slowly to understand that all objects in the universe are divisible into
two classes, human and non-human, and that a member of the former may be
separated from the others and regarded as an individual. It has reached
the initial stage of its knowledge on the subject; it has the basic idea,
that of the individual human being. As soon as it can speak, it acquires a
designating term--not of course the sophisticated _human being_, but
the simpler _man_. It uses this word in the generic sense, to
indicate _any_ member of the human race; for as yet it knows nothing
and cares nothing about differences in species. With increasing
enlightenment, however, it discerns five species, and distinguishes among
them by swelling this branch of its vocabulary to five words: man (in the
sense of adult male), woman, boy, girl, baby. (To be sure, it may chance
to have acquired a specific term, as _boy_ or _baby_, before the
generic term _man_; but if so, it has attached this term to some
particular individual, as the grocer's boy or itself, rather than to the
individuals of a species. Its understanding of the species as a species
comes after its understanding of the genus.) As time passes, it divides
mankind into yet further species by sundry other methods: according to
occupation, for example, as doctors, chauffeurs, gardeners; to race or
color, as white men; negroes, Malays, Chinese; to disposition, as heroes,
gift-givers, teasers, talkers; and so on. It perceives moreover that
species are made up of sub-species. Thus instead of lumping all boys
together it begins to distinguish them as big boys, little boys,
middle-sized boys, boys in long trousers, boys in short trousers, barefoot
boys, schoolboys, poor boys, rich boys, sick boys, well boys, friends,
enemies, bullies, and what not. It even divides the sub-species. Thus it
classifies schoolboys as bright boys, dullards, workers, shirkers,
teachers' favorites, scapegoats, athletes, note-throwers, truant-players,
and the like. And of these classes it may make yet further sub-divisions,
or at least it may separate them into the individuals that compose them.
In fine, with its growing powers and experience, it abandons its old
conception that all persons are practically alike, and follows human
nature through the countless ramifications of man's status