anthropologists on this subject. Man may have been, indeed I believe
must have been, once a homogeneous race; but it was at a period of which
we have as yet discovered no remains, at a period so remote in his
history, that he had not yet acquired that wonderfully developed brain,
the organ of the mind, which now, even in his lowest examples, raises
him far above the highest brutes;--at a period when he had the form but
hardly the nature of man, when he neither possessed human speech, nor
those sympathetic and moral feelings which in a greater or less degree
everywhere now distinguish the race. Just in proportion as these truly
human faculties became developed in him, would his physical features
become fixed and permanent, because the latter would be of less
importance to his well being; he would be kept in harmony with the
slowly changing universe around him, by an advance in mind, rather than
by a change in body. If, therefore, we are of opinion that he was not
really man till these higher faculties were fully developed, we may
fairly assert that there were many originally distinct races of men;
while, if we think that a being closely resembling us in form and
structure, but with mental faculties scarcely raised above the brute,
must still be considered to have been human, we are fully entitled to
maintain the common origin of all mankind.
_The Bearing of these Views on the Antiquity of Man._
These considerations, it will be seen, enable us to place the origin of
man at a much more remote geological epoch than has yet been thought
possible. He may even have lived in the Miocene or Eocene period, when
not a single mammal was identical in form with any existing species.
For, in the long series of ages during which these primeval animals were
being slowly changed into the species which now inhabit the earth, the
power which acted to modify them would only affect the mental
organization of man. His brain alone would have increased in size and
complexity, and his cranium have undergone corresponding changes of
form, while the whole structure of lower animals was being changed. This
will enable us to understand how the fossil crania of Denise and Engis
agree so closely with existing forms, although they undoubtedly existed
in company with large mammalia now extinct. The Neanderthal skull may be
a specimen of one of the lowest races then existing, just as the
Australians are the lowest of our modern epoch. We have no reason to
suppose that mind and brain and skull modification, could go on quicker
than that of the other parts of the organization; and we must therefore
look back very far in the past, to find man in that early condition in
which his mind was not sufficiently developed, to remove his body from
the modifying influence of external conditions and the cumulative action
of "natural selection." I believe, therefore, that there is no _a
priori_ reason against our finding the remains of man or his works in
the tertiary deposits. The absence of all such remains in the European
beds of this age has little weight, because, as we go further back in
time, it is natural to suppose that man's distribution over the surface
of the earth was less universal than at present.
Besides, Europe was in a great measure submerged during the tertiary
epoch; and though its scattered islands may have been uninhabited by
man, it by no means follows that he did not at the same time exist in
warm or tropical continents. If geologists can point out to us the most
extensive land in the warmer regions of the earth, which has not been
submerged since Eocene or Miocene times, it is there that we may expect
to find some traces of the very early progenitors of man. It is there
that we may trace back the gradually decreasing brain of former races,
till we come to a time when the body also begins materially to differ.
Then we shall have reached the starting point of the human family.
Before that period, he had not mind enough to preserve his body from
change, and would, therefore, have been subject to the same
comparatively rapid modifications of form as the other mammalia.
_Their Bearing on the Dignity and Supremacy of Man._
If the views I have here endeavoured to sustain have any foundation,
they give us a new argument for placing man apart, as not only the head
and culminating point of the grand series of organic nature, but as in
some degree a new and distinct order of being. From those infinitely
remote ages, when the first rudiments of organic life appeared upon the
earth, every plant, and every animal has been subject to one great law
of physical change. As the earth has gone through its grand cycles of
geological, climatal, and organic progress, every form of life has been
subject to its irresistible action, and has been continually, but
imperceptibly moulded into such new shapes as would preserve their
harmony with the ever-changing universe. No living thing could escape
this law of its being; none (except, perhaps, the simplest and most
rudimentary organisms), could remain unchanged and live, amid the
universal change around it.
At length, however, there came into existence a being in whom that
subtle force we term _mind_, became of greater importance than his mere
bodily structure. Though with a naked and unprotected body, _this_ gave
him clothing against the varying inclemencies of the seasons. Though
unable to compete with the deer in swiftness, or with the wild bull in
strength, _this_ gave him weapons with which to capture or overcome
both. Though less capable than most other animals of living on the herbs
and the fruits that unaided nature supplies, this wonderful faculty
taught him to govern and direct nature to his own benefit, and make her
produce food for him, when and where he pleased. From the moment when
the first skin was used as a covering, when the first rude spear was
formed to assist in the chase, when fire was first used to cook his
food, when the first seed was sown or shoot planted, a grand revolution
was effected in nature, a revolution which in all the previous ages of
the earth's history had had no parallel, for a being had arisen who was
no longer necessarily subject to change with the changing universe--a
being who was in some degree superior to nature, inasmuch as he knew how
to control and regulate her action, and could keep himself in harmony
with her, not by a change in body, but by an advance of mind.
Here, then, we see the true grandeur and dignity of man. On this view of
his special attributes, we may admit, that even those who claim for him
a position as an order, a class, or a sub-kingdom by himself, have some
show of reason on their side. He is, indeed, a being apart, since he is
not influenced by the great laws which irresistibly modify all other
organic beings. Nay more; this victory which he has gained for himself,
gives him a directing influence over other existences. Man has not only
escaped "natural selection" himself, but he is actually able to take
away some of that power from nature which before his appearance she
universally exercised. We can anticipate the time when the earth will
produce only cultivated plants and domestic animals; when man's
selection shall have supplanted "natural selection;" and when the ocean
will be the only domain in which that power can be exerted, which for
countless cycles of ages ruled supreme over all the earth.
_Their Bearing on the future Development of Man._
We now find ourselves enabled to answer those who maintain, that if Mr.
Darwin's theory of the Origin of Species is true, man too must change in
form, and become developed into some other animal as different from his
present self as he is from the Gorilla or the Chimpanzee; and who
speculate on what this form is likely to be. But it is evident that such
will not be the case; for no change of conditions is conceivable, which
will render any important alteration of his form and organization so
universally useful and necessary to him, as to give those possessing it
always the best chance of surviving, and thus lead to the development
of a new species, genus, or higher group of man. On the other hand, we
know that far greater changes of conditions and of his entire
environment have been undergone by man, than any other highly organized
animal could survive unchanged, and have been met by mental, not
corporeal adaptation. The difference of habits, of food, clothing,
weapons, and enemies, between savage and civilized man, is enormous.
Difference in bodily form and structure there is practically none,
except a slightly increased size of brain, corresponding to his higher
mental development.
We have every reason to believe, then, that man may have existed and may
continue to exist, through a series of geological periods which shall
see all other forms of animal life again and again changed; while he
himself remains unchanged, except in the two particulars already
specified--the head and face, as immediately connected with the organ of
the mind and as being the medium of expressing the most refined emotions
of his nature,--and to a slight extent in colour, hair, and proportions,
so far as they are correlated with constitutional resistance to disease.
_Summary._
Briefly to recapitulate the argument;--in two distinct ways has man
escaped the influence of those laws which have produced unceasing change
in the animal world. 1. By his superior intellect he is enabled to
provide himself with clothing and weapons, and by cultivating the soil
to obtain a constant supply of congenial food. This renders it
unnecessary for his body, like those of the lower animals, to be
modified in accordance with changing conditions--to gain a warmer
natural covering, to acquire more powerful teeth or claws, or to become
adapted to obtain and digest new kinds of food, as circumstances may
require. 2. By his superior sympathetic and moral feelings, he becomes
fitted for the social state; he ceases to plunder the weak and helpless
of his tribe; he shares the game which he has caught with less active or
less fortunate hunters, or exchanges it for weapons which even the weak
or the deformed can fashion; he saves the sick and wounded from death;
and thus the power which leads to the rigid destruction of all animals
who cannot in every respect help themselves, is prevented from acting on
him.
This power is "natural selection;" and, as by no other means can it be
shown, that individual variations can ever become accumulated and
rendered permanent so as to form well-marked races, it follows that the
differences which now separate mankind from other animals, must have
been produced before he became possessed of a human intellect or human
sympathies. This view also renders possible, or even requires, the
existence of man at a comparatively remote geological epoch. For, during
the long periods in which other animals have been undergoing
modification in their whole structure, to such an amount as to
constitute distinct genera and families, man's _body_ will have
remained generically, or even specifically, the same, while his _head_
and _brain_ alone will have undergone modification equal to theirs. We
can thus understand how it is that, judging from the head and brain,
Professor Owen places man in a distinct sub-class of mammalia, while as
regards the bony structure of his body, there is the closest anatomical
resemblance to the anthropoid apes, "every tooth, every bone, strictly
homologous--which makes the determination of the difference between
_Homo_ and _Pithecus_ the anatomist's difficulty." The present theory
fully recognises and accounts for these facts; and we may perhaps claim
as corroborative of its truth, that it neither requires us to depreciate
the intellectual chasm which separates man from the apes, nor refuses
full recognition of the striking resemblances to them, which exist in
other parts of his structure.
_Conclusion._
In concluding this brief sketch of a great subject, I would point out
its bearing upon the future of the human race. If my conclusions are
just, it must inevitably follow that the higher--the more intellectual
and moral--must displace the lower and more degraded races; and the
power of "natural selection," still acting on his mental organization,
must ever lead to the more perfect adaptation of man's higher faculties
to the conditions of surrounding nature, and to the exigencies of the
social state. While his external form will probably ever remain
unchanged, except in the development of that perfect beauty which
results from a healthy and well organized body, refined and ennobled by
the highest intellectual faculties and sympathetic emotions, his mental
constitution may continue to advance and improve, till the world is
again inhabited by a single nearly homogeneous race, no individual of
which will be inferior to the noblest specimens of existing humanity.
Our progress towards such a result is very slow, but it still seems to
be a progress. We are just now living at an abnormal period of the
world's history, owing to the marvellous developments and vast practical
results of science, having been given to societies too low morally and
intellectually, to know how to make the best use of them, and to whom
they have consequently been curses as well as blessings. Among civilized
nations at the present day, it does not seem possible for natural
selection to act in any way, so as to secure the permanent advancement
of morality and intelligence; for it is indisputably the mediocre, if
not the low, both as regards morality and intelligence, who succeed best
in life and multiply fastest. Yet there is undoubtedly an advance--on
the whole a steady and a permanent one--both in the influence on public
opinion of a high morality, and in the general desire for intellectual
elevation; and as I cannot impute this in any way to "survival of the
fittest," I am forced to conclude that it is due, to the inherent
progressive power of those glorious qualities which raise us so
immeasurably above our fellow animals, and at the same time afford us
the surest proof that there are other and higher existences than
ourselves, from whom these qualities may have been derived, and towards
whom we may be ever tending.
X.
THE LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION AS APPLIED TO MAN.
Throughout this volume I have endeavoured to show, that the known laws
of variation, multiplication, and heredity, resulting in a "struggle for
existence" and the "survival of the fittest," have probably sufficed to
produce all the varieties of structure, all the wonderful adaptations,
all the beauty of form and of colour, that we see in the animal and
vegetable kingdoms. To the best of my ability I have answered the most
obvious and the most often repeated objections to this theory, and have,
I hope, added to its general strength, by showing how colour--one of the
strongholds of the advocates of special creation--may be, in almost all
its modifications, accounted for by the combined influence of sexual
selection and the need of protection. I have also endeavoured to show,
how the same power which has modified animals has acted on man; and
have, I believe, proved that, as soon as the human intellect became
developed above a certain low stage, man's body would cease to be
materially affected by natural selection, because the development of his
mental faculties would render important modifications of its form and
structure unnecessary. It will, therefore, probably excite some
surprise among my readers, to find that I do not consider that all
nature can be explained on the principles of which I am so ardent an
advocate; and that I am now myself going to state objections, and to
place limits, to the power of "natural selection." I believe, however,
that there are such limits; and that just as surely as we can trace the
action of natural laws in the development of organic forms, and can
clearly conceive that fuller knowledge would enable us to follow step by
step the whole process of that development, so surely can we trace the
action of some unknown higher law, beyond and independent of all those
laws of which we have any knowledge. We can trace this action more or
less distinctly in many phenomena, the two most important of which
are--the origin of sensation or consciousness, and the development of
man from the lower animals. I shall first consider the latter difficulty
as more immediately connected with the subjects discussed in this
volume.
_What Natural Selection can Not do._
In considering the question of the development of man by known natural
laws, we must ever bear in mind the first principle of "natural
selection," no less than of the general theory of evolution, that all
changes of form or structure, all increase in the size of an organ or in
its complexity, all greater specialization or physiological division of
labour, can only be brought about, in as much as it is for the good of
the being so modified. Mr. Darwin himself has taken care to impress
upon us, that "natural selection" has no power to produce absolute
perfection but only relative perfection, no power to advance any being
much beyond his follow beings, but only just so much beyond them as to
enable it to survive them in the struggle for existence. Still less has
it any power to produce modifications which are in any degree injurious
to its possessor, and Mr. Darwin frequently uses the strong expression,
that a single case of this kind would be fatal to his theory. If,
therefore, we find in man any characters, which all the evidence we can
obtain goes to show would have been actually injurious to him on their
first appearance, they could not possibly have been produced by natural
selection. Neither could any specially developed organ have been so
produced if it had been merely useless to him, or if its use were not
proportionate to its degree of development. Such cases as these would
prove, that some other law, or some other power, than "natural
selection" had been at work. But if, further, we could see that these
very modifications, though hurtful or useless at the time when they
first appeared, became in the highest degree useful at a much later
period, and are now essential to the full moral and intellectual
development of human nature, we should then infer the action of mind,
foreseeing the future and preparing for it, just as surely as we do,
when we see the breeder set himself to work with the determination to
produce a definite improvement in some cultivated plant or domestic
animal. I would further remark that this enquiry is as thoroughly
scientific and legitimate as that into the origin of species itself. It
is an attempt to solve the inverse problem, to deduce the existence of a
new power of a definite character, in order to account for facts which
according to the theory of natural selection ought not to happen. Such
problems are well known to science, and the search after their solution
has often led to the most brilliant results. In the case of man, there
are facts of the nature above alluded to, and in calling attention to
them, and in inferring a cause for them, I believe that I am as strictly
within the bounds of scientific investigation as I have been in any
other portion of my work.
_The Brain of the Savage shown to be Larger than he Needs it to be._
_Size of Brain an important Element of Mental Power._--The brain is
universally admitted to be the organ of the mind; and it is almost as
universally admitted, that size of brain is one of the most important of
the elements which determine mental power or capacity. There seems to be
no doubt that brains differ considerably in quality, as indicated by
greater or less complexity of the convolutions, quantity of grey matter,
and perhaps unknown peculiarities of organization; but this difference
of quality seems merely to increase or diminish the influence of
quantity, not to neutralize it. Thus, all the most eminent modern
writers see an intimate connection between the diminished size of the
brain in the lower races of mankind, and their intellectual
inferiority. The collections of Dr. J. B. Davis and Dr. Morton give the
following as the average internal capacity of the cranium in the chief
races:--Teutonic family, 94 cubic inches; Esquimaux, 91 cubic inches;
Negroes, 85 cubic inches; Australians and Tasmanians, 82 cubic inches;
Bushmen, 77 cubic inches. These last numbers, however, are deduced from
comparatively few specimens, and may be below the average, just as a
small number of Finns and Cossacks give 98 cubic inches, or considerably
more than that of the German races. It is evident, therefore, that the
absolute bulk of the brain is not necessarily much less in savage than
in civilised man, for Esquimaux skulls are known with a capacity of 113
inches, or hardly less than the largest among Europeans. But what is
still more extraordinary, the few remains yet known of pre-historic man
do not indicate any material diminution in the size of the brain case. A
Swiss skull of the stone age, found in the lake dwelling of Meilen,
corresponded exactly to that of a Swiss youth of the present day. The
celebrated Neanderthal skull had a larger circumference than the
average, and its capacity, indicating actual mass of brain, is estimated
to have been not less than 75 cubic inches, or nearly the average of
existing Australian crania. The Engis skull, perhaps the oldest known,
and which, according to Sir John Lubbock, "there seems no doubt was
really contemporary with the mammoth and the cave bear," is yet,
according to Professor Huxley, "a fair average skull, which might have
belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless
brains of a savage." Of the cave men of Les Eyzies, who were undoubtedly
contemporary with the reindeer in the South of France, Professor Paul
Broca says (in a paper read before the Congress of Pre-historic
Archaeology in 1868)--"The great capacity of the brain, the development
of the frontal region, the fine elliptical form of the anterior part of
the profile of the skull, are incontestible characteristics of
superiority, such as we are accustomed to meet with in civilised races;"
yet the great breadth of the face, the enormous development of the
ascending ramus of the lower jaw, the extent and roughness of the
surfaces for the attachment of the muscles, especially of the
masticators, and the extraordinary development of the ridge of the
femur, indicate enormous muscular power, and the habits of a savage and
brutal race.
These facts might almost make us doubt whether the size of the brain is
in any direct way an index of mental power, had we not the most
conclusive evidence that it is so, in the fact that, whenever an adult
male European has a skull less than nineteen inches in circumference, or
has less than sixty-five cubic inches of brain, he is invariably
idiotic. When we join with this the equally undisputed fact, that great
men--those who combine acute perception with great reflective power,
strong passions, and general energy of character, such as Napoleon,
Cuvier, and O'Connell, have always heads far above the average size, we
must feel satisfied that volume of brain is one, and perhaps the most
important, measure of intellect; and this being the case, we cannot fail
to be struck with the apparent anomaly, that many of the lowest savages
should have as much brains as average Europeans. The idea is suggested
of a surplusage of power; of an instrument beyond the needs of its
possessor.