X70 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



theory, or is not sufficiently acquainted with the biological 

 facts — ^has not the requisite amount of experimental know- 

 ledge in Anthropology, Zoology, and Botany. 



If, as we maintain, natural selection is the great active 

 cause which has produced the whole wonderful variety of 

 organic life on the earth, all the interesting phenomena oi 

 human life must also be explicable from the same cause. 

 For man is after all only a most highly-developed vertebrate 

 animal, and all aspects of human life have their parallels, or, 

 more correctly, their lower stages of development in the 

 animal kingdom. The whole history of nations, or what is 

 called " Universal History," must therefore be explicable by 

 means of "natural selection," — must be a physico-chemical 

 process, depending upon the interaction of Adaptation and 

 Inheritance in the struggle for life. And this is actually 

 the case. We shall give further proofs of this later on. 



It appears of interest here to remark that not only 

 natural selection, but also artificial selection exercises its 

 influence in many ways in universal history. A remark- 

 able instance of artificial selection in man, on a great 

 scale, is furnished by the ancient Spartans, among whom, 

 in obedience to a special law, all newly-born children 

 were subject to a careful examination and selection. All 

 those that were weak, sickly, or affected with any bodily 

 infirmity, were killed. Only the perfectly healthy and strong 

 children were allowed to live, and they alone afterwards pro- 

 pagated the race. By this means, the Spartan race was not 

 only continually preserved in excellent strength and vigour, 

 but the perfection of their bodies increased with every 

 generation. No doubt the Spartans owed their rare degree 

 of masculine strength and rou^'h heroic valour (for which 



