280 THE STRUCTURAL EVIDENCE OF EVOLUTION". 



accomplished a much greater work, the evolution of the human 

 brain and its functions. 



A very important lesson is derived from these and kindred facts. 

 The monkeys were anticipated in the greater fields of the world's 

 activity by more powerful rivals ; the ancestors of the ungulates 

 held the fields and the swamps, and the Carnivora, driven by hun- 

 ger, learned the arts and cruelty of the chase. The weaker an- 

 cestors of the Quadrumana possessed neither speed nor weapons 

 of offense and defense, and nothing but an arboreal life was left 

 them, where they developed the prehensile powers of the feet. 

 Their digestive system unspecialized, their food various, their life 

 the price of ceaseless vigilance, no wonder that that quality of in- 

 quisitiveness and wakefulness was stimulated and developed which 

 is the condition of progressive intelligence. So " the race has not 

 been to the swift nor the battle to the strong" : the "survival of 

 the fittest" has been the survival of the most intelligent, and 

 natural selection proves to be, in its highest animal phase, intel- 

 ligent selection. 



