PRIMITIVE MAN. 369 



creature, and acquired his social sympathies, physical 

 evolution must cease, and must be replaced by inven- 

 tion, contrivance, and social organisation. This is at 

 once obvious and undeniable, and it follows that the 

 natural selection applicable to man, as man, must 

 relate purely to his mental and moral improvement. 

 Wallace, however, fails to comprehend the full sig- 

 nificance of this feature of the case. Given, a man 

 destitute of clothing, he may never acquire such 

 clothing by natural selection, because he will provide 

 an artificial substitute. He will evolve not into a 

 hairy animal, but into a weaver and a tailor. Given, 

 a man destitute of claws and fangs, he will not ac- 

 quire these, but will manufacture weapons. But then, 

 on the hypothesis of derivation, this is not what is 

 given us as the raw material of man, but instead of 

 this a hairy ape. Admitting the power of natural 

 selection, we might understand how this ape could 

 become more hairy, or acquire more formidable 

 weapons, as it became more exposed to cold, or more 

 under the necessity of using animal food; but that 

 it should of itself leave this natural line of develop- 

 ment and enter on the entirely different line of mental 

 progress is not conceivable, except as a result of creative 

 intervention. 



Absolute materialists may make light of this diffi- 

 culty, and may hold that this would imply merely a 

 change of brain; but even if we admit this, they 

 fail to show of what use such better brain would 

 be to a creature retaining the bodily form and in- 

 - - < "TT" " ' 



