﻿Introduction. 



25 



fectly certain that Mr. Wallace — unless he has 

 practised the art from boyhood— does not possess. 



So it is with his similar argument that the human 

 voice is more "powerful," more "flexible/' and pre- 

 sents a greater " range " and " sweetness " than the 

 needs of savage life can be held to require. The futility 

 of this argument is self-evident as regards " power." 

 And although its weakness is not so obvious with 

 respect to the other three qualities which are named, 

 need we go further than the closely analogous case of 

 certain birds to show the precariousness of arguing 

 from such facts of organic nature to the special 

 operation of " a superior intelligence " ? I can hardly 

 suppose that Mr. Wallace will invoke any such 

 agency for the purpose of explaining the " latent 

 capacities " of the voice of a parrot. Yet, in many re- 

 spects, these are even more wonderful than those 

 of the human voice, albeit in a wild state they are 

 " never required or used V 



Once more, with regard to the naked skin, it seems 

 sufficient to quote the following passage from the first 

 edition of the Descent of Man. 



" The Rev. T. R. Stebbing, in commenting on this view, 

 remarks, that had Mr. Wallace ■ employed his usual ingenuity 

 on the question of man's hairless skin, he might have seen 

 the possibility of its selection through its superior beauty, 

 or the health attaching to superior cleanliness. At any rate 

 it is surprising that he should picture to himself a superior 



1 For a discussion of this remarkable case, see Mental Evolution in 

 Animals, pp. 222-3. It appears to me that if Mr. Wallace's argument 

 from the "latent capacities of the voice of Man" is good for anything, 

 a fortiori it must be taken to prove that, in the case of the Parrot, " the 

 organ has been prepared in anticipation " of the amusement which the 

 cultivation of its latent capacities arouses in "civilized man." 





