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Show 136 THE DESCENT OF MAN. .P..&.Rr I. ditions. The inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, the Cape of Good Hope, and Tasmania in the one hemisphere, and of the Arctic regions in the other, must have passed through many climates and changed their habits many times, before they reached their present homes.57 The early progenitors of man must also have tended, like all other animals, to have increased beyond their means of subsistence; they must therefore occasionally have been exposed to a struggle for existence, and consequently to the rigid law of natural selection. Beneficial variations of all kinds will thus, either occasionally or habitually, have been preserved, and injurious ones eliminated. I do not refer to strongly-marked deviations of structure, which occur only at long intervals of time, but to mere individual differences. We know, for instance, that the muscles of our hands and feet, which determine our powers of movement, are liable, like those of the lower animals, 58 to incessant variability. If then the ape-like progenitors of man which inhabited any district, especially one undergoing some change in its conditions, were divided into two equal bodies, the one half which included all the individuals best adapted by their powers of movement for gaining subsistence or for defending themselves, would on an average survive · in greater number and procreate more offspring than the other and less well endowed half. Man in the rudest state in which he now exists is the most dominant animal that has ever appeared on the earth. He has spread more widely than any 57 Latham,' l\Ian and his 1\Jigrations,' 1851, p. 135. 5 ~ l\fessrs. l\furie and lVIivart in their "Anatomy of the Lemuroidea" (' Transact. Zoolog. Soc.' vol. vii. 1869, p. 96-98) say " some muscles " are so irregular in their distriLution tl1at they cann~t be well classe•l " in any of 1he above groups." These muscles differ even on the opposite sides of the eame individual. C HAP. IV. MANNER OF DEVELOPMENT. 137 other highly organised form ; and all others have yielded before him. He manifestly owes this immense superiority to his intellectual faculties, his social habits, which lead him to aid and defend his fellows, and to his corporeal structure. The supreme importance of these characters has been proved by 1. 111: final arbitr.ament of the battle for life. Through hiH powers of intellect, articulate language has been evolved; and on this his wonderful advancement has mainly depended. He has invented and is able to use various weapons, tools, traps, &c., with which he defends himself, kills or catches prey, and otherwise obtains food. He has made rafts or canoes on which to fish or cross over to neighbouring fertile islands. He has discovered the art of making fire, by which hard and stringy roots can be rendered digestible, and poisonous roots or herbs innocuous. This last discovery, probably the greatest, excepting language, ever made by man, dates from before the dawn of history. These several inventions, by which man in the rudest state has become so preeminent, are the direct result of the development of his powers of observation, memory, curiosity, imagination, and reason. I cannot, therefore, understand how it is that Mr. Wallace 59 maintains, that "natural selec- 59 ' Quarterly Review,' April, 1869, p. 392. Tllis subject is more fully di~>cussed in 1\ir. Wallace's' Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection,' 1870, in which all the essays refel'l'ed to in this work are republished. The 'Essay on l\fan' has been ably criticised by Prof. Claparede, one of tho most distinguished zoologists in Europe, in an article published in the 'Bibliothcque Universelle,' June, 1870. The remark quoted in my text will surprise every one who has read Mr. Wallace's celebrated paper on 'The Origin of Human Races deduced from the Theory of Natural Selection,' originally published in the 'Anthropological Review,' 1\fay, 1864, p. clviii. I cannot here resist quoting a most just remark by Sir J. Lubbock ('Prehistoric 'rimes,' 186!), p. 479) in reference to this paper, namely, that Mr. Wallace, "with characteristic unselfishness, ascribes it (i.e. the idea of |