326 THE ACTION OF NATURAL 



may admit, that even those who claim for him a 

 position as an order, a class, or a sub-kingdom by 

 himself, have some show of reason on their side. He 

 is, indeed, a being apart, since he is not influenced 

 by the great laws which irresistibly modify all other 

 organic beings, $"ay more ; this victory which he has 

 gained for himself, gives him a directing influence 

 over other existences. Man has not only escaped 

 " natural selection " himself, but he is actually able 

 to take away some of that power from nature which 

 before his appearance she universally exercised. We 

 can anticipate the time when the earth will produce 

 only cultivated plants and domestic animals ; when 

 man's selection shall have supplanted "natural selec- 

 tion ;" and when the ocean will be the only domain 

 in which that power can be exerted, which for count- 

 less cycles of ages ruled supreme over all the earth. 



Their Bearing on the future Development of Man. 



We now find ourselves enabled to answer those who 

 maintain, that if Mr. Darwin's theory of the Origin of 

 Species is true, man too must change in form, and be- 

 come developed into some other animal as different from 

 his present self as he is from the Gorilla or the Chim- 

 panzee ; and who speculate on what this form is likely 

 to be. But it is evident that such will not be the case ; 

 for no change of conditions is conceivable, which will 

 render any important alteration of his form and organi- 

 zation so universally useful and necessary to him, as 

 to give those possessing it always the best chance of 



