IX 
THE LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION AS APPLIED TO MAN 
THROUGHOUT this volume I have endeavoured to show that 
the known laws of variation, multiplication, and heredity, 
resulting in a “struggle for existence” and the “survival of 
the fittest,” have probably sufficed to produce all the varieties 
of structure, all the wonderful adaptations, all the beauty of 
form and of colour, that we see in thé animal and vegetable 
kingdoms. To the best of my ability I have answered the 
most obvious and the most often repeated objections to this 
theory, and have, I hope, added to its general strength, 
by showing how colour—one of the strongholds of the ad- 
vocates of special creation—may be, in almost all its modifi- 
cations, accounted for by the combined influence of sexual 
selection and the need of protection.1 I have also endeavoured 
to show how the same power which has modified animals has 
acted on man; and have, I believe, proved that, as soon as 
the human intellect became developed above a certain low 
stage, man’s body would cease to be materially affected by 
natural selection, because the development of his mental 
faculties would render important modifications of its form 
and structure unnecessary. It will, therefore, probably ex- 
cite some surprise among my readers to find that I do not 
consider that all nature can be explained on the principles of 
which I am so ardent an advocate ; and that I am now myself 
going to state objections, and to place limits, to the power of 
natural selection. I believe, however, that there are such 
1 Since writing this in 1870 I have come to the conclusion that sexual 
selection has had little, if any, influence on colour, See chap. v. of “ Tropi- 
cal Nature” in this volume, and Darwinism, chap. x. 
