SELECTION ON MAN. 321 



mental development had, from some unknown cause, 

 greatly advanced, and had now reached that condition 

 in which it began powerfully to influence his whole 

 existence, and would therefore become subject to the 

 irresistible action of " natural selection." This action 

 would quickly give the ascendency to mind : speech 

 would probably now be first developed, leading to a 

 still further advance of the mental faculties ; and from 

 that moment man, as regards the form and structure of 

 most parts of his body, would remain almost station- 

 ary. The art of making weapons, division of labour, 

 anticipation of the future, restraint of the appetites, 

 moral, social, and sympathetic feelings, would now 

 have a preponderating influence on his well being, 

 and would therefore be that part of his nature on 

 which " natural selection " would most powerfully act; 

 and we should thus have explained that wonderful per- 

 sistence of mere physical characteristics, which is the 

 stumbling-block of those who advocate the unity of 

 mankind. 



We are now, therefore, enabled to harmonise the 

 conflicting views of anthropologists on this subject. 

 Man may have been, indeed I believe must have been, 

 once a homogeneous race ; but it was at a period of 

 which we have as yet discovered 110 remains, at a period 

 so remote in his history, that he had not yet acquired 

 that wonderfully developed brain, the organ of the 

 mind, which now, even in his lowest examples, raises 

 him far above the highest brutes ; at a period when 

 he had the form but hardly the nature of man, when 



Y 



