478 NATURAL SELECTION 



less effect now than was formerly the case. At present, 

 when men migrate they carry with them the manners and 

 appliances of civilised life. They build houses more or less 

 like those to which they have been accustomed, carry with 

 them flocks and herds, and introduce into their new country 

 the principal plants which served them for food in the old. 

 If their, new abode is cold they increase their clothing, if 

 warm they diminish it. In these and a thousand other ways 

 the effect which would otherwise be produced is greatly 

 retarded. 



But, as we have seen, this has not always been the case. 

 When man first spread over the earth, he had no domestic 

 animals, perhaps not even the dog ; no knowledge of agricul- 

 ture ; his weapons were of the rudest character, and his 

 houses scarcely worthy of the name. His food, habits, and 

 whole manner of life must then have varied as he passed 

 from one country to another, he must have been far more 

 subject to the influence of external circumstances, and in all 

 probability more susceptible of change. Moreover, his form, 

 which is now stereotyped by long ages of repetition, may 

 reasonably be supposed to have been itself more plastic than 

 is now the case. 



If there is any truth in this view of the subject, it will 

 necessarily follow that the principal varieties of man are of 

 great antiquity, and in fact go back almost to the very origin 

 of the human race. "We may then cease to wonder that the 

 earliest paintings on Egyptian tombs represent so accurately 

 several varieties still existing in those regions, and that the 

 Engis skull, probably the most ancient yet found in Europe, 

 so closely resembles many that may be seen even at the 

 present day. 



This argument has been carried still farther by Mr. Wal- 

 lace in an admirable memoir on "The Origin of Human 

 Races and the Antiquity of Man deduced from the theory of 



