132 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part I. 



by the final arbitrament of the battle for life. Through 

 his powers of intellect, articulate language has been 

 evolved; and on this his wonderful advancement has 

 mainly depended. He has invented and is able to use 

 various weapons, tools, traps, etc., with which he defends 

 himself, kills or catches prey, and otherwise obtains food. 

 He has made rafts or canoes on which to fish or cross over 

 to neighboring fertile islands. He has discovered the art 

 of making fire, by which hard and stringy roots can be 

 rendered digestible, and poisonous roots or herbs innocu- 

 ous. This last discovery, probably the greatest, excepting 

 language, ever made by man, dates from before the dawn 

 of history. These several inventions, by which man in the 

 rudest state has become so preeminent, are the direct re- 

 sult of the development of his powers of observation, 

 memory, curiosity, imagination, and reason. I cannot, 

 therefore, understand how it is that Mr. "Wallace 69 main- 

 tains, that "natural selection could only have endowed 

 the savage with a brain a little superior to that of an 

 ape." 



Although the intellectual powers and social habits of 



59 'Quarterly Review,' April, 1869, p. 392. This subject is more 

 fully discussed in Mr. Wallace's ' Contributions to the Theory of Natural 

 Selection,' 18*70, in which all the essays referred to in this work are re- 

 published. The • Essay on Man ' has been ably criticised by Prof. Clapa- 

 rede, one of the most distinguished zoologists in Europe, in an article 

 published in the ' Bibliotheque Universelle,' June, 1870. The remark 

 quoted in my text will surprise every one who has read Mr. Wallace's 

 celebrated paper on ' The Origin of Human Races deduced from the 

 Theory of Natural Selection,' originally published in the ' Anthropologi- 

 cal Review,' May, 1864, p. clviii. I cannot here resist quoting a most 

 just remark by Sir J.Lubbock ('Prehistoric Times,' 1865, p. 4*79) in 

 reference to this paper, namely, that Mr. Wallace, "with characteristic 

 unselfishness, ascribes it (i e., the idea of natural selection) unreservedly 

 to Mr. Darwin, although, as is well known, he struck out the idea inde- • 

 pendently, and published it, though not with the same elaboration, at the 

 same time." 



