NATUHAL SELECTION APPLIED TO MAN. 580 



ral Selection."* He has attemped to reconcile the two great 

 schools of ethnologists who hold opinions " so diametrically 

 opposed to each other ; the one party positively maintaining 

 that man is a species, and is essentially one that all differ- 

 ences are but local and temporary variations produced by the 

 different physical and moral conditions by which he is sur- 

 rounded ; the other party maintaining with equal confidence 

 that man is a genus of many species, each of which is prac- 

 tically unchangeable, and has ever been as distinct, or even 

 more distinct, than we now behold them." Mr. Wallace him- 

 self holds the former of these theories, although admitting 

 that at present apparently " the best of the argument is on 

 the side of those who maintain the primitive diversity of 

 man," and he shows that the true solution of this difficulty 

 lies in the theory of Natural Selection, which, with charac- 

 teristic unselfishness, he ascribes unreservedly to Mr. Darwin, 

 although, as is well known,he struck out the idea independently, 

 and published it, not indeed with the same elaboration, at the 

 same time. 



After explaining the true nature of the theory, which it 

 must be confessed is even yet very much misunderstood, 

 he points out that as long as man led what may be called a 

 mere animal existence, he would be subject to the same laws, 

 and would vary in the same manner, as the rest of his fellow- 

 creatures, but that at length "by the capacity of clothing 

 himself, and making weapons and tools, (he) has taken away 

 from nature that power of changing the external form and 



structure which she exercises over all other animals 



From the time, then, when the social and sympathetic feel- 

 ings came into active operation, and the intellectual and 

 moral faculties became fairly developed, man would cease to 

 be influenced by natural selection in his physical form and 

 structure ; as an animal he would remain almost stationary : 

 * Anthropological Review, May, 1864. 



