Chap. IV. MANNER OF DEVELOPMENT. 157 



advantage to man to have sprung from some com- 

 paratively weak creature. 



The slight corporeal strength of man, his little speed, 

 his want of natural weapons, &c, are more than coun- 

 terbalanced, firstly by his intellectual powers, through 

 which he has, whilst still remaining in a barbarous state, 

 formed for himself weapons, tools, &c, and secondly by 

 his social qualities which lead him to give aid to his 

 fellow-men and to receive it in return. No country 

 in the world abounds in a greater degree with dan- 

 gerous beasts than Southern Africa; no country pre- 

 sents more fearful physical hardships than the Arctic 

 regions ; yet one of the puniest races, namely, the 

 Bushmen, maintain themselves in Southern Africa, as 

 do the dwarfed Esquimaux in the Arctic regions. The 

 early progenitors of man were, no doubt, inferior in 

 intellect, and probably in social disposition, to the 

 lowest existing savages ; but it is quite conceivable that 

 they might have existed, or even flourished, if, whilst 

 they gradually lost their brute-like powers, such as 

 climbing trees, &c, they at the same time advanced 

 in intellect. But granting that the progenitors of man 

 were far more helpless and defenceless than any existing 

 savages, if they had inhabited some warm continent 

 or large island, such as Australia or New Guinea, or 

 Borneo (the latter island being now tenanted by the 

 orang), they would not have been exposed to any special 

 danger. In an area as large as one of these islands, 

 the competition between tribe and tribe would have 

 been sufficient, under favourable conditions, to have 

 raised man, through the survival of the fittest, combined 

 with the inherited effects of habit, to his present high 

 position in the organic scale. 



