IX 
LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION IN MAN 
203 
the female sex, are shown to be beyond the needs of 
savages, and, from their known habits, impossible to have 
been acquired either by sexual selection or by survival of 
the fittest. 
The mind of man offers arguments in the same direction, 
hardly less strong than those derived from his bodily struc- 
ture. A number of his mental faculties have no relation to 
his fellow-men, or to his material progress. The power of 
conceiving eternity and infinity, and all those purely abstract 
notions of form, number, and harmony, which play so large 
a part in the life of civilised races, are entirely outside of 
the world of thought of the savage, and have no influence 
on his individual existence or on that of his tribe. They 
could not, therefore, have been developed by any preserva- 
tion of useful forms of thought ; yet we find occasional 
traces of them amidst a low civilisation, and at a time when 
they could have had no practical effect on the success of the 
individual, the family, or the race ; and the development of 
a moral sense or conscience by similar means is equally 
inconceivable. 
But, on the other hand, we find that every one of these 
characteristics is necessary for the full development of human 
nature. The rapid progress of civilisation under favourable 
conditions would not be possible, were not the organ of the 
mind of man prepared in advance, fully developed as regards 
size, structure, and proportions, and only needing a few 
generations of use and habit to co-ordinate its complex func- 
tions. The naked and sensitive skin, by necessitating clothing 
and houses, would lead to the more rapid development of 
man’s inventive and constructive faculties ; and, by leading 
to a more refined feeling of personal modesty, may have 
influenced, to a considerable extent, his moral nature. The 
erect form of man, by freeing the hands from all locomotive 
uses, has been necessary for his intellectual advancement ; 
and the extreme perfection of his hands has alone rendered 
possible that excellence in all the arts of civilisation which 
raises him so far above the savage, and is perhaps but the 
forerunner of a higher intellectual and moral advancement. 
The perfection of his vocal organs has first led to the forma- 
tion of articulate speech, and then to the development of 
