THE ORIGIN OF MAN 231 



that the funeral feast was cooked and eaten on the 

 level space in front of the cave; and, finally, that 

 carnivorous beasts gnawed the bones left on the spot. 

 It is evident that the Aurignac men practiced relig- 

 ious rites which indicated a belief in immortality." * 



If such were among the oldest known men, how 

 long must it have taken to evolve them, with their 

 belief in immortality, from the highest known apes? 

 And yet we have no evidence whatever from fossils 

 that connect him with a lower form, that he has been 

 evolved at all. 



The ancient Egyptian paintings show that the Cau- 

 casian and Negro races have undergone little, if any, 

 change in the last 4000 years. If this length of time 

 has produced no appreciable change in these races 

 what would be the period required to evolve man 

 from an ape-like ancestor? 



Mr. Wallace tries to account for the absence of 

 physical change in man within the historic pei'iod by 

 claiming that the mind of man enables him to adapt 

 himself to a changing environment, thus relieving 

 him from the necessity of undergoing physical 

 change. 



He believes that the lower animals have been 

 evolved by natural selection, but that mind is the 

 creation of a superior intelligence. 



He says: " The inference I would draw from this 

 class of phenomena is that a superior intelligence 

 has guided the development of man in a definite 

 direction and for a special purpose, just as man 

 guides the development of many animal and vegetable 

 forms." t 



The following are some of the objections which he 

 offers against the theory of the evolution of man by 

 natural selection : 

 * Elements of Geology, p. 596. + On Natural Selection, p. 359. 



