Scientific Sophisms. 243 



seldom sing at all." " It seems as if the organ 

 had been prepared in anticipation of the future 

 progress of man, since it contains latent capa- 

 cities which are useless to him in his earlier 

 condition." l 



Mr. Wallace is in perfect agreement also with 

 Christian theism in the value he attaches to 

 man's "capacity to form ideal conceptions of 

 space and time, of eternity and infinity the 

 capacity for intense artistic feelings of pleasure, 

 in form, colour, and composition and those 

 abstract notions of form and number which 

 render geometry possible," as well as with 

 respect to the non-bestial origin of moral per- 

 ception." 3 



And beyond all this, he considers Man as not 

 only placed " apart, as the head and culminating 

 point of the grand series of organic nature, but 

 as in some degree a new and distinct order of 

 being." ..." When the first rude spear 

 was formed to assist in the chase ; when fire 

 was first used to cook his food ; when the first 



1 On this subject, indeed, even Mr. Darwin himself 

 admits that " neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of 

 producing musical notes are faculties of the least direct 

 use to man in reference to his ordinary habits of life ; 

 they must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with 

 which he is endowed." Descent of Man, vol. ii. p. 333. 



8 " Natural Selection," pp. 351, 352. 



