XV DARWINISM APPLIED TO MAN 457 



the modification of other mammalian species would also have 

 led to a change in man. But this argument overlooks the 

 fact that man differs essentially from all other mammals in 

 this respect, that Avhereas any important adaptation to new 

 conditions can be effected in them only by a change in bodily 

 structure, man is able to adapt himself to much greater 

 changes of conditions by a mental development leading him 

 to the use of fire, of tools, of clothing, of improved dwellings, of 

 nets and snares, and of agriculture. By the help of these, 

 without any change whatever in his bodily structure, he has 

 been able to spread over and occu^^y the whole earth; to 

 dwell securely in forest, plain, or mountain ; to inhabit alike 

 the burning desert or the arctic wastes ; to cope Avith every 

 kind of wild beast, and to provide himself with food in 

 districts Avhere, as an animal trusting to nature's unaided 

 productions, he would have starved.^ 



It follows, therefore, that from the time when the ancestral 

 man first walked erect, with hands freed from any active part 

 in locomotion, and when his brain-power became sufficient to 

 cause him to use his hands in making weapons and tools, 

 houses and clothing, to use fire for cooking, and to plant seeds 

 /bv roots to supply himself "svith stores of food, the power of 

 . / natural selection would cease to act in producing modifications 

 of his body, but would continuously advance his mind through 

 the develoi^ment of its organ, the brain. Hence man may 

 have become truly man — the species. Homo sapiens — even 

 in the Miocene period; and while all other mammals were 

 becoming modified from age to age under the influence of ever- 

 changing physical and biological conditions, he would be 

 advancing mainly in intelligence, but perhaps also in stature, 

 and by that advance alone would be able to maintain himself 

 as the master of all other animals and as the most Avidespread 

 occupier of the earth. It is quite in accordance with this view 

 that we find the most pronounced distinction between man 

 and the anthropoid apes in the size and complexity of his 

 brain. Thus, Professor Huxley tells us that "it may be 

 doubted whether a healthy human adult brain ever weighed 



1 This subject was first discussed in an article in the Anthropological 

 Hevieio, May 1.864, and republished in my Contributions to Natural Selection, 

 chap, ix, in 1870. 



