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only be brought about, inasmuch as it is for the good of the 
being so modified.^^ 
If this be the case, then the modifications which must have 
taken place in the physical character of the apes while in 
their transition state, could not have been for their good. 
Two or three points will make this clear. And first, as to 
the loss of hair on the skin. Mr. Wallace's remarks on this 
subject are very valuable. In his Limits of Natural Selection 
as Aijplied to Man, he says : — It seems to me, then, to be 
absolutely certain that ^Natural Selection^ could not have 
produced man^s hairless body by the accumulation of varia- 
tions from a hairy ancestor. The evidence all goes to show 
that such variations could not have been useful, but must, on 
the contrary, have been to some extent hurtful. If, even, 
owing to an unknown correlation with other hurtful qualities, 
it had been abolished in the ancestral tropical man, we cannot 
conceive that, as man spread into colder climates, it should not 
have returned under the powerful infiuences of reversion to 
such a long persistent ancestral type. But the very founda- 
tion of such a supposition as this is untenable ; for we cannot 
suppose that a character which, like hairiness, exists through- 
out the whole of the mammalia, can have become, in one form 
only, so constantly correlated with an injurious character as to 
lead to its permanent suppression — a suppression so complete 
and effectual that it never, or scarcely ever, reappears in 
mongrels of the most widely different races of man.'’^ This is, 
we think, a most important admission to be made by an 
evolutionist. In the second place, the shortening of the 
forearms and the conversion of the hind-thumbs into toes, 
and the hind-hands into feet, must have been a dire calamity 
to a race whose food could best be obtained by climbing. 
When speaking on this subject, Mr. Wallace makes a most 
important admission. He says : — Again, the hand of man 
contains latent capacities and powers which are unused by 
savages, and must have been less used by palasolithic man 
and his still ruder predecessors. It has all the appearance of 
an organ prepared for the use of civilised man, and one which 
was required to render civilisation possible. Apes make little 
use of their separate fingers and opposable thumbs. They 
grasp objects rudely and clumsily, and look as if a much less 
specialized extremity would have served their purpose as 
well/^ 
In the third place, evolution will not account for the bram 
capacity of man^s skull. The average internal capacity of the 
cranium in the different races of men has been found to 
