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Show IGO THE DESCENT OF MAN. PART I. are likewise of some importance for its success, and these depend in part on the nature and amount of the food which can be obtained. In Europe the men of the Bronze period were supplanted by a more powerful and, judging from their sword-handles, larger-handed race ;3 but their success was probably due in a much higher degree to their superiority in the arts. All that we know about savages, or may infer from their traditions and from old monuments, the history of which is quite forgotten by the present inhabitants, shew that from the remotest times successful tribes have supplanted other tribes. Relics of extinct or forgotten tribes have been discovered throughout the civilised regions of the earth, on the wild plains of America, and on the isolated islands in the Pacific Ocean. At the present day civilised nations are everywhere supplantinO' barbarous nat.ions, excepting where the climate oppose~ .a deadly barrier; and they succeed mainly, though not -exclusively, through their arts, which are the products ·of the intellect. It is, therefore, highly probable that with mankind the intellectual faculties have been gradually perfected through natural selection; and this ?onclusion is sufficient for our purpose. Undoubtedly 1t would have been very interesting to have traced the development of each separate faculty from the state in which it exists in the lower animals to that in which it exists. in man ; but neither my ability nor knowledge perm1t the attempt. It deserves notice that as soon as the proO"enitors of man became social (and this probably occ~rred at a very early period), the advancement of the intellectual faculties will have been aided and modified in an important manner, of which we see only traces in 3 1\:Iorlot, 'Soc. Vaud. Sc. Nat.' 1860, p. 294. CIJAP. v. INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES. 161 the lower animals, namely, through the principle of imitation, together with reason and experience. Apes are much given to imitation, as are the lowest savages; and the simple fact previously referred to, that after a time no animal can be caught in the same place by the same sort of trap, shews that animals learn by experience, and imitate each others' caution. Now, if some one man in a tribe, more sagacious than the others, invented a new snare or weapon, or other means of attack or defence, the plainest self-interest, without the assistance of much reasoning power, would prompt the other members to imitate him; and all would thus profit. The habitual practice of each new art must likewise in some slight degree strengthen the intellect. If the new invention were an important one, the tribe would increase in number, spread, and supplant other tribes. In a tribe thus rendered more numerous there would always be a rather better chance of the birth of other superior and inventive members. If such men left children to inherit their mental superiority, the chance of the birth of still more ingenious members would be somewhat better, aud in a very small tribe decidedly better. Even if they left no children, the tribe would still include their blood-relations; and it has been ascertained by agriculturists 4 that by preserving .and breeding from the family of an animal, which when slaughtered was found to be valuable, the desired character has been obtained. Turning now to the social and moral faculties. In order that primeval men, or the ape-lil\:e progenitors .of man, should have become social, they .must have 4 I have given. instances in my 'Variation of Animals under Domestication,' vol. ii. p. 196. VOL. I. M |