HAS EVOLUTION REACHED ITS GOAL? 113 



Aud the question arises, what further step can be 

 conceived ? 



Such changes as can be imagined are not positive, 

 but negative. Undoubtedly the jaws of man are 

 undergoing involution. Already his teeth but rarely 

 last a lifetime. His hands clothe and house him, 

 so that he is becoming less hairy. He will in all 

 probability retain only such hair as may have 

 eesthetic value and be preserved by sexual selection ; 

 only such teeth as are needed for the biting of such 

 food, e.g. an apple, as is most pleasant when 

 attacked in its natural state ; whilst sexual selection 

 and the aesthetic sense may preserve the incisors 

 as comely accompaniments of a smile. Perhaps his 

 nails may disappear. Doubtless his intestinal canal 

 may undergo much simplification, and cease to 

 include various parts which are now of only his- 

 torical or surgical interest. 



But we may grant all this and more, and yet 

 maintain not only that physical evolution has 

 reached its goal in man, but also that no further 

 stage can be conceived. Figure this creature of the 

 future, as hairless, toothless, nailless, as you please, 

 gigantic as to head, small as to muscle : he will still 

 be palpably a man : though modified, yet plainly a 

 modified man, in a much truer sense than man can 

 be called a modified ape. It is, therefore, submitted 

 by certain students that the assumption of the erect 

 attitude constituted a final stage in physical evolution. 



Reluctant to believe this assertion, one may pro- 

 ceed to imagine some development which might 

 fairly be regarded as introducing an organism as 

 different from man the erect as he is different from 



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