Chap. IV. 
MANNER OF DEVELOPMENT. 
157 
advantage to man to have sprung from some com- 
paratively weak creature. 
The slight corporeal strength of man, his little speed, 
his want of natural weapons, &c., are more than coun- 
terbalanced, firstly by his intellectual powers, through 
which he has, whilst still remaining in a barbarous state, 
formed for himself weapons, tools, &c., and secondly by 
his social qualities which lead him to give aid to his 
fellow-men and to receive it in return. No country 
in the world abounds in a greater degree with dan- 
gerous beasts than Southern Africa ; no country pre- 
sents more fearful physical hardships than the Arctic 
regions ; yet one of the puniest races, namely, the 
Bushmen, maintain themselves in Southern Africa, as 
do the dwarfed Esquimaux in the Arctic regions. The 
early progenitors of man were, no doubt, inferior in 
intellect, and probably in social disposition, to the 
lowest existing savages ; but it is quite conceivable that 
they might have existed, or even flourished, if, whilst 
they gradually lost their brute-like powers, such as 
climbing trees, &c., they at the same time advanced 
in intellect. But granting that the progenitors of man 
were far more helpless and defenceless than any existing 
savages, if they had inhabited some warm continent 
or large island, such as Australia or New Guinea, or 
Borneo (the latter island being now tenanted by the 
orang), they would not have been exposed to any special 
danger. In an area as large as one of these islands, 
the competition between tribe and tribe would have 
been sufficient, under favourable conditions, to have 
raised man, through the survival of the fittest, combined 
with the inherited effects of habit, to his present high 
position in the organic scale. 
