MANNER OF DEVELOPMENT. 55 



which man in the rudest state has become so pre-eminent, 

 are the direct results of the development of his powers of 

 observation, memory, curiosity, imagination, and reason. I 

 cannot, therefore, understand how it is that Mr. Wallace* 

 maintains, that " natural selection 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 un- 

 derrate 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 facul- 

 ties being discussed in a later 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 a Fuegian in defend- 

 ing himself, or in killing birds, requires the most consum- 

 mate perfection in the correlated action of the muscles of 

 the hand, arm, and shoulder, and, further, 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 co-adaptation 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, f re- 

 marks, the shaping fragments of stone into knives, lances, 

 or arrow-heads, shows '^'^ extraordinary ability and long 



*" Quarterly Review," April, 1869, p. 392. This subject is more 

 fully discussed in Mr. Wallace's " Contributions to the Theory of 

 Natural Selection," 1870, in which all the essays referred to in this 

 work are republished. The "Essay on Man," has been ably criti- 

 cized by Prof. Claparede, one of the most distinguished zoologists in 

 Europe, in an article published in the " Bibliotheque Universelle," 

 June. 1870. The remark quoted in my text will surprise every one 

 who has read Mr. Wallace's celebrated paper on " The Origin of 

 Human Races deduced from the Theory of Natural Selection," orig- 

 inally published in the ' Anthropological Review," May, 1864, p. 

 clviii. I cannot here resist quoting a most just remark by Sir J. 

 Lubbock ("Prehistoric Times," 1865, p. 479) in reference to this 

 paper, namely, that Mr. Wallace, "with characteristic unselfishness, 

 ascribes it (i. e. the idea of natural selection) unreservedly to Mr. 

 Darwin, although, as is well known, he struck out the idea inde- 

 pendently, and published it, though not with the same elaboration, 

 at the same time." 



f Quoted by Mr. Lawson Tait in his " I^aw of Natural Selection," 

 " Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science," Feb., 1869. Dr. 

 Keller is likewise quoted to the same effect. 



