ix LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION IN MAN 203 



the female sex, are shown to be beyond the needs of 

 savages, and, from their known habits, impossible to have 

 been acquired either by sexual selection or by survival of 

 the fittest. 



The mind of man offers arguments in the same direction, 

 hardly less strong than those derived from his bodily struc- 

 ture. A number of his mental faculties have no relation to 

 his fellow-men, or to his material progress. The power of 

 conceiving eternity and infinity, and all those purely abstract 

 notions of form, number, and harmony, which play so large 

 a part in the life of civilised races, are entirely outside of 

 the world of thought of the savage, and have no influence 

 on his individual existence or on that of his tribe. They 

 could not, therefore, have been developed by any preserva- 

 tion of useful forms of thought ; yet we find occasional 

 traces of them amidst a low civilisation, and at a time when 

 they could have had no practical effect on the success of the 

 individual, the family, or the race ; and the development of 

 a moral sense or conscience by similar means is equally 

 inconceivable. 



But, on the other hand, we find that every one of these 

 characteristics is necessary for the full development of human 

 nature. The rapid progress of civilisation under favourable 

 conditions would not be possible, were not the organ of the 

 mind of man prepared in advance, fully developed as regards 

 size, structure, and proportions, and only needing a few 

 generations of use and habit to co-ordinate its complex func- 

 tions. The naked and sensitive skin, by necessitating clothing 

 and houses, would lead to the more rapid development of 

 man's inventive and constructive faculties ; and, by leading 

 to a more refined feeling of personal modesty, may have 

 influenced, to a considerable extent, his moral nature. The 

 erect form of man, by freeing the hands from all locomotive 

 uses, has been necessary for his intellectual advancement ; 

 and the extreme perfection of his hands has alone rendered 

 possible that excellence in all the arts of civilisation which 

 raises him so far above the savage, and is perhaps but the 

 forerunner of a higher intellectual and moral advancement. 

 The perfection of his vocal organs has first led to the forma- 

 tion of articulate speech, and then to the development of 



