154 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part I 



cess, and these depend in part on the nature and amount 

 of the food which can be obtained. In Europe the men 

 of the Bronze period were supplanted by a more powerful 

 and, judging from their sword-handles, larger-handed 

 race ; 3 but their success was probably due in a much 

 higher degree to their superiority in the arts.- 



All that we know about savages, or may infer from 

 their traditions and from old monuments, the history of 

 which is quite forgotten by the present inhabitants, shows 

 that from the remotest times successful tribes have sup- 

 planted other tribes. Relics of extinct or forgotten tribes 

 have been discovered throughout the civilized regions of 

 the earth, on the wild plains of America, and on the iso- 

 lated islands in the Pacific Ocean. At the present day 

 civilized nations are everywhere supplanting barbarous 

 nations, excepting where the climate opposes a deadly bar- 

 rier; and they succeed mainly, though not exclusively, 

 through their arts, which are the products of the intellect. 

 It is, therefore, highly probable that with mankind the in- 

 tellectual faculties have been gradually perfected through 

 natural .selection ; and this conclusion is sufficient for our 

 purpose. Undoubtedly it would have been very inter- 

 esting to have traced the development of each separate 

 faculty from the state in which it exists in the lower 

 animals to that in which it exists in man ; but neither my 

 ability nor knowledge permits the attempt. 



It deserves notice that as soon as the progenitors of 

 man became social (and this probably occurred at a very 

 early period), the advancement of the intellectual faculties 

 will have been aided and modified in an important manner, 

 of which we see only traces in the lower animals, namely, 

 through the principle of imitation, together with reason 



other tribe assume, as Mr. Maine remarks ('Ancient Law, 1 1861, p. 131), 

 that they are the co-descendants of the same ancestors. 

 3 Morlot, ' Soc. Vaud. Sc. Nat.' 1860, p. 294 





