APPLIED TO MAN. 479 



Natural Selection." * He has attempted to reconcile the two 

 great schools of ethnologists who hold opinions " so dia- 

 metrically opposed to each other ; the one party positively 

 maintaining that man is a species, and is essentially one 

 that all differences are but local and temporary variations, 

 produced by the different physical and moral conditions by 

 which he is surrounded; the other party maintaining with 

 equal confidence that man is a genus of many species, each of 

 which is practically unchangeable, and has ever been as 

 distinct, or even more distinct, than we now behold them/' 

 Mr. Wallace himself holds the former of these theories, 

 although admitting that at present apparently "the best of 

 the argument is on the side of those who maintain the 

 primitive diversity of man/' and he shows that the true 

 solution of this difficulty lies in the theory of Natural Selec- 

 tion, which witlj characteristic unselfishness he ascribes un- 

 reservedly to Mr. Darwin, although, as is well known, he 

 struck out the idea independently and published it, though 

 not with the same elaboration, at the same time. 



After explaining the true nature of the theory, which it 

 must be confessed, is even yet very much misunderstood, he 

 points out that as long as man led what may be called an 

 animal existence, he would be subject to the same laws, and 

 would vary in the same manner as the rest of his fellow- 

 . creatures, but that at length "by the capacity of clothing 

 himself, and making weapons and tools (he) has taken away 

 from nature that power of changing the external form and 

 structure which she exercises over all other animals. ..... 



From the time, then, when the social and sympathetic feel- 

 ings came into active operation, and the intellectual and 

 moral faculties became fairly developed, man would cease to 

 be influenced by natural selection in his physical form and 



* Anthropological Review, May, 188L4. 



b 



