THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 91 



now-a-days than it was in the hunting stage ; 

 and thus the prevalence of shortsightedness, so 

 far as it cannot be accounted for by what takes 

 place in the individual life-time, does not com- 

 pel us to suppose that it has been produced by 

 the hard study of past generations " poring 

 over miserable books." At least the cautious 

 verdict with regard to the transmission of the 

 effects of use and disuse appears to be " not 

 proven." 



Mr. Wallace even rejects Darwin's theory of 

 sexual selection, except in so far as it consists 

 merely in the struggle between males and can 

 therefore be resolved into one aspect of natural 

 selection. 1 So that no one could apply the 

 theory of natural selection in a more complete 

 and thorough-going way than Mr. Wallace 

 until he comes to the middle of his very last 

 chapter. He fully accepts " Mr. Darwin's con- 

 clusion as to the essential identity of man's 

 bodily structure with that of the higher 

 mammalia, and his descent from some ances- 

 tral form common to man and the anthropoid 

 apes"; but, when Darwin goes on to derive 

 the moral nature and mental faculties of man ] 

 1 Darwinism, pp. 274, 283, 296. 



