NATUEAL SELECTION INSUFFICIENT TO DEVELOPMENT OF MAN. 23 
earth out of their natural course for the sake of producing a 
choice and eminent creature, just as the florist manipulates his 
roses to produce a Lamarque or a Marechal Mel, or a pigeon- 
fancier his birds to bring about a pouter or a fan-tail. Into 
the further question of what this mighty Life-fashioner may be, 
or by what other name he may be called, Mr. Wallace does not 
enter, though we may gather, from a passage in which he speaks 
of “ the controlling action of such higher intelligences,” that 
he does not necessarily identify him with the First Cause of all 
things, but rather inclines to the view that such interference 
with the ordinary course of nature may be due to some unknown 
order of intelligent existences, the existence of which may help 
to carry our thoughts across the immeasurable chasm which 
separates man from the Infinite and Unconditioned. 
These are thoughts which open vistas of scientific imagina- 
tion in which even Professor Tyndall might find ample room 
to range. If we admit them at all, it is scarcely possible to 
stand still on them. If this overruling and intelligent selec- 
tion has been necessary to produce man, why should it be 
limited to that single achievement ? A unique and solitary 
interference of this kind is far more inconsistent with any 
philosophical view of creation than an habitual and regular 
guidance. Mr. Wallace himself puts this forcibly when he 
admits that his theory “ has the disadvantage of requiring the 
intervention of some distinct individual intelligence, to aid in 
the production of what we can hardly avoid considering as the 
ultimate aim and outcome of all organized existence — intellec- 
tual, ever-advancing, spiritual man.” But the disadvantage 
vanishes if he will boldly extend his theory, and allow it to 
include, as he hints in the following sentence, the idea “ that 
the controlling action of such higher intelligences is a neces- 
sary part of the great laws which govern the material universe ; ” 
or, to put it in other words, that intelligent superintendence is 
a perpetual factor in the development of life. Other cases, 
besides man, might easily be brought forward, which present 
similar difficulties in the way of natural selection, and seem 
therefore to require the introduction of this other factor. 
What, for instance, were the steps which led to the production 
of the first mammal, or of the first vertebrate ? It is easy to 
see the superiority of the perfect animal in either case, and its 
consequent fitness as an aim towards which intelligence might 
work, but very difficult to comprehend how the first steps in 
either direction can have been beneficial to the individual. 
Some years ago a Scotch clergyman, Mr. Eorison, published a 
little book, which has hardly been so widely read as it de- 
served to be, entitled 66 The Three Barriers.” They were the 
Brain, the Breast, and the Backbone — the symbols of Wisdom, 
