CHAP, xv REACTION FROM DARWINISM DRUMMOND 151 



importance? That is a difficulty -which besets the 

 doctrine of natural selection all along the line, unless 

 the admission is made that variation may proceed per 

 saltum. However, in regard to the origin of reason, 

 the difficulty is met tant bien que mal by treating 

 reason alternately as identical with animal intelligence, 

 and as something wholly new. When the origin of 

 human reason is made the subject of discussion, it is 

 spoken of as a new and advantageous variety ; when 

 the difficulty of its quantity or amount is referred to, it 

 is treated as a slight improvement upon those lesser 

 amounts of intelligence which are found among the 

 highest of the lower animals. The muscular ape survived 

 the feeble ape, and the clever ape survived the stupid 

 one. The ape which was muscular but stupid, and the 

 ape which was clever but feeble, ran perhaps a dead 

 heat ; but both of them were distanced a great way by 

 the ape which was at once muscular and clever. At 

 last, however, from one of the clever apes was born one 

 cleverer still, one that deserved to be called rational, to 

 be called human. And henceforth the future lay with 

 him. He might be healthy or he might be feeble, but 

 his endowment of reason made him more than a match 

 for all the apes, more than a match for everything, 

 unless another human child of the apes was evolved, 

 who had the advantage of being more vigorous than the 

 first, while equally rational. In that case the new- 

 comer must be king ! Of the two endowments, however 

 and this is Dr. Wallace's point reason is the stronger. 

 As soon as reason has become the thing best worth pre- 

 serving by natural selection, rational beings survive. 

 As soon as a rational race establishes itself, we may be 

 sure that reason is the most important of all its helps in 

 the struggle for existence. 



