138 THE DESCENT OF MAX. Part I. 



" tion 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 

 man are of paramount importance to him, we must not 

 underrate the importance of his bodily structure, to which 

 subject the remainder of this chapter will be devoted. 

 The development of the intellectual and social or moral 

 faculties will be discussed in the following chapter. 



Even to hammer with precision is no easy matter, as 

 every one who has tried to learn carpentry will admit. 

 To throw a stone with as true an aim as can a Fueofian in 

 defending himself, or in killing birds, requires the most 

 consummate perfection in the correlated action of the 

 muscles of the hand, arm, and shoulder, not to mention 

 a fine sense of touch. In throwing a stone or spear, and 

 in many other actions, a man must stand firmly on his 

 feet ; and this again demands the perfect coadaptation of 

 numerous muscles. To chip a flint into the rudest tool, 

 or to form a barbed spear or hook from a bone, demands 

 the use of a perfect hand ; for, as a most capable judge, 

 Mr. Schoolcraft, 60 remarks, the shaping fragments of 

 stone into knives, lances, or arrow-heads, shews " extra- 

 " ordinary ability and long practice." We have evidence 

 of this in primeval men having practised a division of 

 labour ; each man did not manufacture his own flint 

 tools or rude pottery ; but certain individuals appear to 

 have devoted themselves to such work, no doubt re- 

 ceiving in exchange the produce of the chase. Archaeo- 

 logists are convinced that an enormous interval of time 



" natural selection) unreservedly to Mr. Darwin, although, as is well 

 " known, he struck out the idea independently, and published it, 

 " though not with the same elaboration, at the same time." 



60 Quoted by Mr. Lawson Tait in his " Law of Natural Selection," 

 — 'Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science,' Feb. 1869. Dr. 

 Keller is likewise quoted to the same effect. 



