328 THE ACTION OF NATURAL 



by cultivating the soil to obtain a constant supply of 

 congenial food. This renders it unnecessary for his 

 body, like those of the lower animals, to be modified 

 in accordance Avith changing conditions to gain a 

 warmer natural covering, to acquire more powerful 

 teeth or claws, or to become adapted to obtain and 

 digest new kinds of food, as circumstances may re- 

 quire. 2. By his superior sympathetic and moral 

 feelings, he becomes fitted for the social state ; he 

 ceases to plunder the weak and helpless of his tribe ; 

 he shares the game which he has caught with less 

 active or less fortunate hunters, or exchanges it for 

 weapons which even the weak or the deformed can 

 fashion ; he saves the sick and wounded from death ; 

 and thus the power which leads to the rigid destruc- 

 tion of all animals who cannot in .every respect help 

 themselves, is prevented from acting on him. 



This power is "natural selection;" and, as by no 

 other means can it be shown, that individual varia- 

 tions can ever become accumulated and rendered per- 

 manent so as to form well-marked races, it follows 

 that the differences which now separate mankind from 

 other animals, must have been produced before he be- 

 came possessed of a human intellect or human sympa- 

 thies. This view also renders possible, or even requires, 

 the existence of man at a comparatively remote geo- 

 logical epoch. For, during the long periods in which 

 other animals have been undergoing modification in 

 their whole structure, to such an amount as to con- 

 stitute distinct genera and families, man's body will 



