Chap. 1 1. Manner of Development. 63 



member gains no advantage over the others of the same com- 

 munity. Associated insects have thus acquired many remark- 

 able structures, which are of little or no service to the individual, 

 such as the pollen-collecting apparatus, or the sting of the 

 worker-bee, or the great jaws of soldier-ants. With the higher 

 social animals, I am not aware that any structure has been 

 modified solely for the good of the community, though some are 

 of secondary service to it. For instance, the horns of ruminants 

 and the great canine teeth of baboons appear to have been 

 acquired by the males as weapons for sexual strife, but they are 

 used in defence of the herd or troop. In regard to certain 

 mental powers the case, as wc shall see in the fifth chapter, is 

 wholly different ; for these faculties have been chiefly, or even 

 exclusively, gained for the benefit of the community, and the 

 individuals thereof, have at the same time gained an advantage 

 indirectly. 



It has often been objected to such views as the foregoing, that 

 man is one of the most helpless and defenceless creatures in the 

 world; and that during his early and less well-developed 

 condition he would have been still more helpless. The Duke of 

 Argyll, for instance, insists 96 that "the human frame has 

 " diverged from the structure of brutes, in the direction of 

 " greater physical helplessness and weakness. That is to say, it 

 " is a divergence which of all others it is most impossible to 

 " ascribe to mere natural selection." He adduces the naked and 

 unprotected state of the body, the absence of great teeth or 

 daws for defence, the small strength and speed of man, and his 

 slight power of discovering food or of avoiding danger by smell. 

 To these deficiencies there might be added one still more 

 serious, namely, that he cannot climb quickly, and so escape 

 from enemies. The loss of hair would not have been a great 

 injury to the inhabitants of a warm country. For we know that the 

 unclothed Fuegians can exist under a wretched climate. When 

 we compare the defenceless state of man with that of apes, we 

 must remember that the great canine teeth with which the latter 

 are provided, are possessed in their full development by the males 

 alone, and are chiefly used by them for fighting with their rivals ; 

 yet the females, which are not thus provided, manage to survive. 



In regard to bodily size or strength, we do not know whether 

 man is descended from some small species, like the chimpanzee, 

 or from one as powerful as the gorilla ; and, therefore, we cannot 

 say whether man has become larger and stronger, or smaller 



96 'Primeval Man,' 1869, d. 66. 



