EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN SPECIES 175 



country to more than two hundred and fifty thousand a 

 year. As in nature at large, the more unfit are eUmi- 

 nated as a result of this struggle, while the more adaj)ted 

 succeed. In the long run, that particular a])ijhcant for 

 a clerkship or any other work who may be the more 

 fitted is the one who gets it. While the severity of 

 competition may be somewhat mitigated as the result 

 of social organization, and while our altruistic charitable 

 institutions enable many to prolong a more or less 

 efficient existence, the struggle for existence cannot be 

 entirely done away with. Heredity also is a real human 

 process, and it follows the same course as in animals at 

 large ; as in the case of variation, some of the funda- 

 mental laws of its operation have been first worked out 

 in the case of human phenomena, and have been found 

 subsequently to be of general application. 



Reverting to the specific question as to the earliest 

 divergence of man from the apes, we can readily see how 

 the superior development of the ape-man's brain gave 

 him a great advantage over his nearest competitors, 

 and how truly human ingenuity enabled the earliest 

 men to employ weapons and crude instruments instead 

 of brute force. Thus the gap between men and apes 

 widened more and more, as reasoning power increased 

 through successive generations. This is another aspect 

 of the statement that the supreme position of man ha,s 

 been gained, not by superior organization in physical 

 respects outside of the nervous system, l)ut by the 

 superior control of human organization by the higher 

 organs of this system. 



The unity of nature and of its processes is established 

 more and more surely as the naturalist classifies the 



