THE DESCENT OR ORIGIN 01 uf^jy 175 



escape detection and danger. When tlisy migrayg iy^q^q 

 colder climate, they must become clothed with' -..o,^j^gj, 

 fur, or have their constitutions altered. If they fail to- ~, 

 thus modified, they will cease to exist. 



The case, however, is widely different, as Mr. "Wallace^ 

 has with justice insisted, in relation to the intellectual and 

 moral faculties of man. These faculties are variable; 

 and we have every reason to believe that the variations 

 tend to be inherited. Therefore, if they were formerly of 

 high importance to primeval man and to his ape- like pro- 

 genitors, they would have been perfected or advanced 

 through natural selection. Of the high importance of the 

 intellectual faculties there can be no doubt, for man mainly 

 owes to them his predominant position in the world. We 

 can see that, in the rudest state of society, the individuals 

 who were the most sagacious, who invented and used the 

 hest weapons or traps, and who were best able to defend 

 themselves, would rear the greatest number of offspring. 

 The tribes which included the largest number of men thus 

 endowed would increase in number and supplant other 

 tribes. Numbers depend primarily on the means of subsist- 

 ence, and this depends partly on the physical nature of the 

 country, but in a much higher degree on the arts which are 

 there practiced. As a tribe increases and is victorious, it 

 is often still further increased by the absorption. of other 

 tribes." The stature and strength of the men of a tribe are 

 likewise of some importance for its success, and these de- 

 pend in part on the nature and amount of the food which 

 can be obtained. In Europe the men of the Bronze period 

 were supplanted by a race more powerful, and. Judging 

 from their sword-handles, with larger .hands ;° but their 

 success was probably still more due to their superiority 

 in the arts. 



2 After a time the members or tribes wMch are absorbed into another tribe 

 assume, as Sir Henry Maine rem'arks ("Ancient Law," 1861, p. 131), that they 

 are the co-descendants of the same ancestors. 



' Morlot, "Soc. Vaud. Sc. Nat.," 1860, p. 294. 



