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The period of infancy, or to be more precise of early infancy, in the human male lasted throughout the Pliocene epoch-up to about a million years ago. It lasted so long because of the gradual deterioration in climatic conditions and the feeling of provisoire. The past is always a paradise if the present is not.
If the Pliocene age was the epoch of early infancy for the human male, the next epoch, the Pleistocene, lasting from a million years ago until the advent of Homo sapiens (approximately 30,000 years ago) could be considered the period of late infancy or the prepubertal phase.
Toward the beginning of the Pleistocene age, humans were about four feet tall. The capacity of their brain, however, was still only about 600 cubic centimeters, two and a half times smaller than the brain of Homo sapiens, and roughly equal to the brain of today's gorilla.
In the Pleistocene age there were two new phenomena. The first was an extraordinary increase in the size of the human brain; and the second was that humans assumed the erect posture.
In the period from approximately one million years ago to about 200,000 years ago (a very short time in evolutionary terms), the human brain increased its volume by two and a half times.
One of the few writers who have attempted to explain the sudden increase in the size of the brain was Robert Ardrey. In his book The Social Contract he wrote: "Seven hundred thousand years ago the earth suffered a violent encounter with a celestial object, perhaps 1,000 ft. in diameter." This "celestial object," which exploded somewhere west of Australia, reversing the earth's poles was, in his view, the cause of the extraordinary growth of the human brain. Ardrey, after explaining his "Theory of Man the Cosmic Accident," concluded: "I do so, however, with the strict understanding that I do not believe a word of it." Ardrey is to be admired for his sincerity, but above all for having at least tried to give an answer to the greatest mystery in the history of mankind, an answer carefully avoided by other commentators.
Most scientists claim that the human brain increased as the use of hands increased, which in turn was possible because of human bipedal locomotion. By this theory, humans, in order to increase their brains, needed free hands. To free their hands, they forced themselves to stand upright, to walk on two feet, and to place themselves in a thoroughly unstable and unnatural position. This theory does not explain why it took mankind so many millions of years (15 million approximately) to find out in a flash that they needed the use of their hands. If bipedalism and the use of their hands helped humans to increase their brain, then dinosaurs would still be with us and kangaroos would have a much bigger brain. Extending this theory, our cousins the apes should have bigger brains than they do, judging by their manual dexterity.
But I don't believe it was the use of the hands that increased the brain - it was the reverse.
What then could have been the reason for the increase in the human brain?
The beginning of the Pleistocene age brought an end to the infernal drought in the African savannah, and introduced new climatic conditions, more promising and more encouraging. It started to rain. The abundance of vegetation produced food in plenty. This reawakened enthusiasm and confidence within the human male. The human male entered into that important period in the life of an individual or a species, the prepubertal phase. The human male was ready to grow up, to grow the essential organ of an opportunist, his brain. He was waiting for a sign, an awakening signal, which came with the rains of the Pleistocene age.
This increased enthusiasm, curiosity, and excitement of the awakened opportunist, exercised a new and stronger pressure on his brain. The emotions and frustration of this ambitious but incomplete being created the extra gray matter - the extra brain.
The law of nature is that need creates organs, their evolution depending on the evolution of the need. Any organ responds to pressure and work by strengthening or growing, and vice-versa. These prepubertal men needed bigger brains to cope with their increased needs. More curiosity and enthusiasm, connected with the stage of prepuberty, encountered more emotions and frustration, which made the blood flow toward the only instrument of an unspecialized animal, his brain. The already existing brain was no longer good enough for the fast and appropriate reactions needed in the new circumstances discovered by increased curiosity and enthusiasm. Men felt the need for solutions. They wanted something more than simple play. From exploring they wanted to move on to finding; from the pleasure of searching into the satisfaction of discovery; from movement to settlement; from dependence to independence.
What happened to women?
Any increase in men's brain became something to which women had to adapt, thus increasing, pari passu, their own brains. The reason for women's brain developing as fast at this stage was also due to its increased role in guiding their new infants, their men, through the perilous stage of prepuberty.
This leads to the conclusion that the brains of man and woman having been differently shaped, differ in quality. The argument that man's brain is bigger than woman's (1,380 grams as opposed to 1,260 grams), and the argument that woman's brain is bigger, if taking into consideration the brain-body proportions, than that of man, are pointless, because man and woman have two different brains - not structurally, but functionally.
The kind of thoughts that the brain is able to produce, depends on its shape. The difficulties facing it through which the brain has developed are of first importance in determining the kind or quality of thoughts. Man's brain was programed by terror, anxiety, frustration, and humiliation, and by the life of misery of an opportunist who, in order to survive, had to compete with hyenas and vultures. These factors created a typically male brain which, when it started to think in the abstract sense, produced typically male ideas. If an ape ever reached the stage of discovering an ability for abstract thought, his thinking would be of a different kind, or another quality. No specialized animals, however, will ever discover their brain and start thinking in abstract terms. If animals ever became aware of their brain, their brain would merely become a tool of their nature, of their specialization.
In this situation, we also have the human female. Her brain will always remain part of, or an instrument of, her specialization, of her nature. Only man, an animal without specialization, without an inner nature, with a feeling of insufficiency or incompleteness, could have used his brain to produce a supernature, an abstract world which, by its definition is in contrast with true nature.
A large number of scientists agree, as we have already mentioned, that humanity in the savannah entered a phase of neoteny. They never explain however, "when mankind emerged from this stage. From a consideration of neoteny, all scientists move straight to Homo sapiens, who for them represents adult mankind. They evade three important periods in both the life of the human individual and the life of mankind; the periods of prepuberty, puberty, and adolescence.
The prepubertal phase is important because it is when the brain reached 90 per cent of its total volume.
The pubertal phase is important because it is the period of shame, the period of concealing the first signs of puberty. The Latin words puber or pubes mean to cover or to be clothed. By covering themselves, humans assumed a role, a role determined by the shape or color of the clothes. Shame begins with the discovery of the mind. It lasts until man overcomes his doubts, until, with the appearance of beliefs, he acquires self-confidence. Shame returns whenever self-confidence and beliefs are shaken, whenever man is stripped of them.
The adolescent phase is important because it is when man discovered the power of his mind, the power of self-infatuation, the power of beliefs.
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