47G 



OEIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF MAN 



[Ch. XLIII 



race was created possessing all those characters which their 

 posterity afterwards inherited ; just as the same author im- 



agines that a great many 



animal, especially species having social habits, were created 



• 1 V 



umbei 



which they were destined to inhabit. This theory has at 



merit 



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opponents of Transmutation from the dilemma of explainino- 

 why, if so great a divergence from a parent type as that o^f 

 the white man and negro can take place, a like modifiability 

 should not be able, in the course of ages, to go a step farther 

 and give rise to differences of specific value. That the races 

 of mankind should never have diverged so far as to become 

 mcapable of intermarrying and producing fertile offsprino- is 

 quite intelligible, if we consider the manner in which tribe 

 wars against tribe, and how the inhabitants of the temperate 

 and colder regions have continually invaded and overpowered 

 the more indolent and less progressive tenants of tropical 

 latitudes. These conquests explain the blending at the point 

 of contact of one race into another, which has led many 

 naturalists to affirm that instead of the five principal types 

 of Blumenbach, there are fifty, if not more than a hundred 

 races, each of which have had their own Adam and Eve. 



Six-fingered variety of man as hearing on the mutaUlity of 

 Us organisation.— M to the supposed want of flexibility in 

 the bodily structure of man ever since the Paleolithic period, 

 we ought to bear in mind that according to the theory of 

 Transmutation we can only expect those parts of his organ- 



struggle for life. 



;he improvement of which would be useful to 

 the individual or tribe giving them an advantage in the 



We have seen (page 297), that the experi- 

 ments of the breeder and horticulturist prove that one part 

 of the organisation of an animal or plant may be greatly 

 altered by selection, while other parts which are neglected 

 remain unchanged or do not vary in a perceptible degree. 

 But the organ the variation of which would be most impor- 

 tant in the case of man is the brain, and it is on cerebral 

 development that Natural Selection would operate most 

 effectively. Before considering whether, 



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