COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



lace, and must rank as one of the most brilliant 

 contributions ever yet made to the Doctrine 

 of Evolution. Since inferior animals respond 

 chiefly by physical changes to changes in their 

 environment, natural selection deals chiefly with 

 such changes, to the visible modification of their 

 bodily structure. In the case of sheep or bears, 

 for instance, increased cold can only select for pre- 

 servation the individuals most warmly coated ; 

 or if a race of lions, which has hitherto subsisted 

 upon small and sluggish ruminants until these 

 have been nearly exterminated, is at last obliged 

 to attack antelopes and buffaloes, natural selec- 

 tion can only preserve the swiftest and strongest 

 or most ferocious lions. But when an animal 

 has once appeared, endowed with sufficient in- 

 telligence to chip a stone tool and hurl a weapon, 

 natural selection will take advantage of varia- 

 tions in this intelligence, to the comparative neg- 

 lect of purely physical variations. Communities 

 whose members are best able to meet by intel- 

 ligent contrivances the changes in the environ- 

 ment will prevail over other communities, and 

 will also be less easily destroyed by physical 

 catastrophes. Still more strikingly must this 

 superior availability of variations in intelligence 

 be exemplified when the intelligence has pro- 

 gressed so far as to sharpen spears, to use rude 

 bows, to dig pitfalls, to cover the body with 

 leaves or skins, and to strike fire by rubbing 



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