418 OUR APE-LIKE ANCESTORS. 



These remarkable mental powers were acquired 

 by the lower animals partly through the struggle to 

 obtain food, which sharpened their intelligence ; and 

 partly through the struggle to obtain the favours of 

 the females, which developed their affections. In all 

 cases, progress resulted from necessity. Races change 

 only that they may not die ; they are developed, so to 

 speak, in self-defence. They have no inherent 

 tendency to rise in the organic scale as plants grow to 

 their flower, as animals grow to their prime. They 

 have, however, a capacity for progress, and that is 

 called forth by circumstances acting upon them from 

 without. The law of growth in the lower kingdom is 

 this, that all progress is preceded by calamity, that all 

 improvement is based upon defect. This law affords 

 us the clue to a phenomenon which at first is difficult 

 to understand. That animal which has triumphed 

 over all the rest, was exceedingly defective in its 

 physique. The race has not been to the swift, nor the 

 battle to the strong. But the very defects of that 

 animal's body made it exclusively rely upon its mind ; 

 and when the struggle for life became severe, the mind 

 was improved by natural selection, and the animal 

 was slowly developed into Man. 



Our ape-like ancestors were not unlike the existing 

 gorilla, chimpanzee, and ourang-outang. They lived 

 in large herds and were prolific ; polygamy was in 

 vogue, and at the courting season love-duels were 

 fought among the males. They chiefly inhabited the 

 ground, but ascended the trees in search of fruit, and 

 also built platforms of sticks and leaves, on which the 

 females were confined, and which were occasionally 

 used as sleeping-places, just as birds sometimes roost 

 in old nests. These animals went on all fours, rising 



