MAN'S DEVOTION 107 



For he could not feed on grass or herbage, as cattle 

 do, nor could he maintain a fruit diet with anything 

 like the ease of monkeys, squirrels, or other tree- 

 inhabiting brutes. For his upright attitude, and 

 feet unadapted to clasping, grasping, or holding on, 

 particularly unfitted him for tree life. 



His teeth, which can neither be said to be specially 

 fitted for a particular diet nor extremely unsuited 

 to any kind, possessed for these very reasons a limited 

 and yet valuable degree of adaptability to an al- 

 most infinite variety of foods, perhaps more so than 

 those of any other creature. That is to say, primi- 

 tive man was probably better fitted than any other 

 animal for what is termed omnivorousness. Nor 

 can it be doubted that this came about by natural 

 selection. For being, in the struggle for existence, 

 physically at so enormous a disadvantage, if he had 

 been limited to one or a few articles of food, his 

 competitors, feeding on the same kinds, being so 

 much better fitted, would so easily have gained the 

 advantage over him as to drive him out of the field 

 of competition, and thus lead to the extermination 

 of the race. 



Being able, however, to subsist on almost any 

 kind of diet, though not nearly so well on any par- 

 ticular kind as the creatures which competed with 

 him for it, it must soon have become natural for him 

 to take a little of one description here, and a small 

 quantity of another kind there, as opportunity 

 favored or risks were minimized. Intelligence 



