We must conceive that, in the march of the centuries, on some fateful day, the bloody tragedy in the last act of the familiar drama was avoided, and the edict of exile or death left unpronounced. Pure maternal love triumphed over the demons of lust and jealousy. A mother succeeded in keeping by her side a male child, and thus, by a strange coincidence, that father and son, who, amongst all mammals, had been the most deadly of enemies, were now the first to join hands. So portentous an alliance might well bring the world to their feet. The family group would now present, for the first time, the till then unknown spectacle of the inclusion within a domestic circle, and amidst its component females, of an adolescent male youth. It must, however, be admitted that such an event, at such an epoch, demanded imperatively very exceptional qualities, both physiological and psychological, in the primitive agents. The new happy ending to that old-world drama which had run for so long through blood and tears, was an innovation requiring very unusually gifted actors. How many failures had doubtless taken place in its rehearsal during the centuries, with less able or happy interpreters! It is probable that, in the new experiment, success was rendered possible by the rise of new powers in nascent man. Some feeble germ of altruism may already have arisen to make its force felt as an important factor. It is also certain that, with such prolonged infancy, there had been opportunity for the development of paternal philo-progenitiveness. It is evident that such long-continued presence of sons could but result in a certain mutual sympathy, however inevitable the eventual exile.