128 TJie Descent of Man. Tart 1. 



Tlic case, however, is widely different, as Mr. "Wallace has 

 with justice insisted, in relation to the intellectual and moral 

 faculties of man. These faculties are variable; and we have 

 every reason to believe that the variations tend to be inherited. 

 Therefore, if they were formerly of high importance to primeval 

 man and to his ape-like progenitors, they would have been 

 perfected or advanced through natural selection. Of the high 

 importance of the intellectual faculties there can be no doubt, 

 for man mainly owes to them his predominant position in the 

 world. We can see, that in the rudest state of society, the 

 individuals who were the most sagacious, who invented and used 

 the best weapons or traps, and who were best . able to defend 

 themselves, would rear the greatest number of offspring. The 

 tribes, which included the largest number of men thus endowed, 

 would increase in number and supplant other tribes. Numbers 

 depend primarily on the means of subsistence, and this depends 

 partly on the physical nature of the country, but in a much higher 

 degree on the arts which are there practised. Asa tribe increases 

 and is victorious, it is often still further increased by the ab- 

 sorption of other tribes. 2 The stature and strength of the men 

 of a tribe are likewise of some importance for its success, and 

 these depend in part on the nature and amount of the food which 

 can be obtaiDed. In Europe the men of the Bronze period were 

 supplanted by a race more powerful, and, judging from their 

 sword-handles, with larger hands ; 3 but their success was pro- 

 bably still more due 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, shew that from the remotest 

 times successful tribes have supplanted other tribes. Belies of 

 extinct or forgotten tribes have been discovered throughout the 

 civilised regions of the earth, on the wild plains of America, and 

 on the isolated islands in the Pacific Ocean. At the present day 

 civilised nations are everywhere supplanting barbarous nations, 

 excepting where the climate opposes a deadly barrier; 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 intellectual faculties have been mainly 

 and gradually perfected through natural selection ; and this con- 

 clusion ig sufficient for our purpose. Undoubtedly it would 

 be interesting to trace the development of each separate faculty 



2 After a time the members or 1861, p. 131), that they are the co- 

 tribes which are absorbed into descendants of the same ancestors, 

 another tribe assume, as Sir Henry 3 Morlot, ' Soc. Vaud. So.. Nat.' 

 Mains remark* ('Ancient Law,' 1860, p. 294. 



