3d8 THE STOEY OP THE EARTH AND MAN. 



iiig themselves to new conditions than many otner 

 mammals less resembling man in external form. 



On the Darwinian theory, such primitive men as 

 geology reveals to us would be more likely to have 

 originated from bears than apes, and we would be 

 tempted to wish that man should become extinct, and 

 that the chance should be given to the mild chim- 

 panzee or orang to produce by natural selection an 

 improved and less ferocious humanity for the future. 



The only rational hypothesis of human origin in the 

 present state of our knowledge of this subject is, that 

 man must have been produced under some circum- 

 stances in which animal food was not necessary to 

 him, in which he was exempt from the attacks of 

 the more formidable animals, and in less need of pro- 

 tection from the inclemency of the weather than is 

 the case with any modern apes ; and that his life as a 

 hunter and warrior began after he had by his know- 

 ledge and skill secured to himself the means of sub- 

 duing nature by force and cunning. This implies 

 that man was from the first a rational being, capable 

 of understanding nature, and it accords much more 

 nearly with the old story of Eden in the book of 

 Genesis, than with any modern theories of evolution. 



It is due to Mr. Wallace — who, next to Darwin, 

 has been a leader among English derivationists — ^to 

 state that he perceives this difficulty. As a believer 

 in natural selection, however, it presents itself to his 

 mind in a peculiar form. He perceives that so soon 

 as, by the process of evolution, man became a rational 



