202 NATURAL SELECTION 



Summary of the Argument as to the Insufficiency of Natural 

 Selection to account for the Development of Man 



Briefly to resume my argument I have shown that the 

 brain of the lowest savages, and, as far as we yet know, of 

 the prehistoric races, is little inferior in size to that of the 

 highest types of man, and immensely superior to that of the 

 higher animals ; while it is universally admitted that quantity 

 of brain is one of the most important, and probably the most 

 essential, of the elements which determine mental power. 

 Yet the mental requirements of savages, and the faculties 

 actually exercised by them, are very little above those of 

 animals. The higher feelings of pure morality and refined 

 emotion, and the power of abstract reasoning and ideal con- 

 ception, are useless to them, are rarely if ever manifested, and 

 have no important relations to their habits, wants, desires, 

 or well-being. They possess a mental organ beyond their 

 needs. Natural selection could only have endowed savage 

 man with a brain a few degrees superior to that of an ape, 

 whereas he actually possesses one very little inferior to that 

 of a philosopher. 



The soft, naked, sensitive skin of man, entirely free from 

 that hairy covering which is so universal among other mam- 

 malia, cannot be explained on the theory of natural selection. 

 The habits of savages show that they feel the want of this 

 covering, which is most completely absent in man exactly 

 where it is thickest in other animals. We have no reason 

 whatever to believe that it could have been hurtful or even 

 useless to primitive man ; and, under these circumstances, its 

 complete abolition, shown by its never reverting in mixed 

 breeds, is a demonstration of the agency of some other power 

 than the law of the survival of the fittest, in the development 

 of man from the lower animals. 



Other characters show difficulties of a similar kind, though 

 not perhaps in an equal degree. The structure of the human 

 foot and hand seem unnecessarily perfect for the needs of 

 savage man, in whom they are as completely and as humanly 

 developed as in the highest races. The structure of the 

 human larynx, giving the power of speech and of producing 

 musical sounds, and especially its extreme development in 



