590 THE INFLUENCE OF MIND. 



the changes of the surrounding universe would cease to have 

 upon him that powerful modifying effect which it exercises 

 over other parts of the organic world. But from the moment 

 that his body became stationary, his mind would become 

 subject to those very influences from which his body had 

 escaped ; every slight variation in his mental and moral nature 

 which should enable him better to guard against adverse 

 circumstances, and combine for mutual comfort and protection, 

 would be preserved and accumulated ; the better and higher 

 specimens of our race would therefore increase and spread, 

 the lower and more brutal would give way and successively 

 die out, and that rapid advancement of mental organization 

 would occur, which has raised the very lowest races of men 

 so far above the brutes (although differing so little from some 

 of them in physical structure), and, in conjunction with 

 scarcely perceptible modifications of form, has developed the 

 wonderful intellect of the Germanic races."* 



Mr. Wallace appears to me, however, to press his argument 

 a little too far when he says that man is no longer "influenced 

 by natural selection," and that his body has "become station- 

 ary." Slow and gradual changes still take place, although 

 his "mere bodily structure" long ago became of less importance 

 to man than " that subtle force we term mind." This, as Mr. 

 Wallace eloquently says, " with a naked and unprotected body, 

 this gave him clothing against the varying inclemencies of 

 the seasons. Though unable to compete with the deer in 

 swiftness, or with the wild bull in strength, this gave him 

 weapons wherewith to capture or overcome both. Though 

 less capable than most other animals of living on the herbs 

 and the fruits that unaided nature supplies, this wonderful 

 faculty taught him to govern and direct nature to his own 



* M. Lartet has attempted to the brain as compared with the rest 

 show that even among animals of the body. Comptes E-endus, 

 there is a gradual enlargement of 1868, p. 1119. 



