My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

MY CHARACTER—NEW IDEAS 381Selection and Tropical Nature ; " and it has beenso fully recognized by Darwin himself and bynaturalists generally that I need say no more aboutit here.2. In 1864 I published an article on "The Developmentof Human Races under the Law ofNatural Selection," the most original and importantpart of which was that in which I showed that so soonas man's intellect and physical structure led him touse fire, to make tools, to grow food, to domesticateanimals, to use clothing, to build houses, the actionof natural selection was diverted from his body to hismind, and thenceforth his physical form remainedstable while his mental faculties improved. Thispaper was greatly admired by Mr. Darwin and severalother men of science, who declared it to be entirelynew to them ;but owing to its having been publishedin one of my less popular works, " Contributions tothe Theory of Natural Selection," it seems to becomparatively little known. Consequently, it stillcontinues to be asserted or suggested that because wehave been developed physically from some lowerform, so in the future we shall be further developedinto a being as different from our present form as weare different from the orang or the gorilla. My papershows why this will not be ; %vhy the form andstructure of our body is permanent, and that it isreally the highest type now possible on the earth.The fact that we have not improved physically overthe ancient Greeks, and that most savage raceseven some of the lowest in material civilizationpossess the human form in its fullest symmetry andperfection, affords evidence that my theory is thetrue one.