62 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



whilst gradually losing their brute-like powers, such as that of 

 climbing trees, &c. Biit these ancestors would not have been ex- 

 posed to any special danger, even, if far more helpless and defense- 

 less than any existing savages, had they inhabited some warm con- 

 tinent or large island, such as Australia, New Guinea, or Borneo, 

 which is now the home of the orang. And natural selection aris- 

 ing from the competition of tribe with tribe, in some such large 

 area as one of these, together with the inherited effects of habit, 

 would, under favorable conditions have sufficed to raise man to 

 his present high position in the organic scale. 



