202 
NATURAL SELECTION 
IX 
Summary of the Argument as to the Insufficiency of Natural 
Selection to account for the Development of Man 
Briefly to resume my argument — I have shown that the 
brain of the lowest savages, and, as far as we yet know, of 
the prehistoric races, is little inferior in size to that of the 
highest types of man, and immensely superior to that of the 
higher animals ; while it is universally admitted that quantity 
of brain is one of the most important, and probably the most 
essential, of the elements which determine mental power. 
Yet the mental requirements of savages, and the faculties 
actually exercised by them, are very little above those of 
animals. The higher feelings of pure morality and refined 
emotion, and the power of abstract reasoning and ideal con- 
ception, are useless to them, are rarely if ever manifested, and 
have no important relations to their habits, wants, desires, 
or well-being. They possess a mental organ beyond their 
needs. Natural selection could only have endowed savage 
man with a brain a few degrees superior to that of an ape, 
whereas he actually possesses one very little inferior to that 
of a philosopher. 
The soft, naked, sensitive skin of man, entirely free from 
that hairy covering which is so universal among other mam- 
malia, cannot be explained on the theory of natural selection., 
The habits of savages show that they feel the want of this 
covering, which is most completely absent in man exactly 
where it is thickest in other animals. We have no reason 
whatever to believe that it could have been hurtful or even 
useless to primitive man ; and, under these circumstances, its 
complete abolition, shown by its never reverting in mixed 
breeds, is a demonstration of the agency of some other power 
than the law of the survival of the fittest, in the development 
of man from the lower animals. 
Other characters show difficulties of a similar kind, though 
not perhaps in an equal degree. The structure of the human 
foot and hand seem unnecessarily perfect for the needs of 
savage man, in whom they are as completely and as humanly 
developed as in the highest races. The structure of the 
human larynx, giving the power of speech and of producing 
musical sounds, and especially its extreme development in 
