Descent of Man [ 1871 ]

Charles Darwin [ 1809 - 1882 ]

Chapter XXI - General Summary and Conclusion




  A BRIEF summary will be sufficient to recall to the reader's mind

the more salient points in this work. Many of the views which have

been advanced are highly speculative, and some no doubt will prove

erroneous; but I have in every case given the reasons which have led

me to one view rather than to another. It seemed worth while to try

how far the principle of evolution would throw light on some of the

more complex problems in the natural history of man. False facts are

highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure

long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little

harm, for every one takes a salutary pleasure in proving their

falseness: and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and

the road to truth is often at the same time opened.

  The main conclusion here arrived at, and now held by many

naturalists who are well competent to form a sound judgment is that

man is descended from some less highly organised form. The grounds

upon which this conclusion rests will never be shaken, for the close

similarity between man and the lower animals in embryonic development,

as well as in innumerable points of structure and constitution, both

of high and of the most trifling importance,- the rudiments which he

retains, and the abnormal reversions to which he is occasionally

liable,- are facts which cannot be disputed. They have long been

known, but until recently they told us nothing with respect to the

origin of man. Now when viewed by the light of our knowledge of the

whole organic world, their meaning is unmistakable. The great

principle of evolution stands up clear and firm, when these groups

or facts are considered in connection with others, such as the

mutual affinities of the members of the same group, their geographical

distribution in past and present times, and their geological

succession. It is incredible that all these facts should speak

falsely. He who is not content to look, like a savage, at the

phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any longer believe that

man is the work of a separate act of creation. He will be forced to

admit that the close resemblance of the embryo of man to that, for

instance, of a dog- the construction of his skull, limbs and whole

frame on the same plan with that of other mammals, independently of

the uses to which the parts may be put- the occasional re-appearance

of various structures, for instance of several muscles, which man does

not normally possess, but which are common to the Quadrumana- and a

crowd of analogous facts- all point in the plainest manner to the

conclusion that man is the co-descendant with other mammals of a

common progenitor.

  We have seen that man incessantly presents individual differences in

all parts of his body and in his mental faculties. These differences

or variations seem to be induced by the same general causes, and to

obey the same laws as with the lower animals. In both cases similar

laws of inheritance prevail. Man tends to increase at a greater rate

than his means of subsistence; consequently he is occasionally

subjected to a severe struggle for existence, and natural selection

will have effected whatever lies within its scope. A succession of

strongly-marked variations of a similar nature is by no means

requisite; slight fluctuating differences in the individual suffice

for the work of natural selection; not that we have any reason to

suppose that in the same species, all parts of the organisation tend

to vary to the same degree. We may feel assured that the inherited

effects of the long-continued use or disuse of parts will have done

much in the same direction with natural selection. Modifications

formerly of importance, though no longer of any special use, are

long-inherited. When one part is modified, other parts change

through the principle of correlation, of which we have instances in

many curious cases of correlated monstrosities. Something may be

attributed to the direct and definite action of the surrounding

conditions of life, such as abundant food, heat or moisture; and

lastly, many characters of slight physiological importance, some

indeed of considerable importance, have been gained through sexual

selection.

  No doubt man, as well as every other animal, presents structures,

which seem to our limited knowledge, not to be now of any service to

him, nor to have been so formerly, either for the general conditions

of life, or in the relations of one sex to the other. Such

structures cannot be accounted for by any form of selection, or by the

inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts. We know, however,

that many strange and strongly-marked peculiarities of structure

occasionally appear in our domesticated productions, and if their

unknown causes were to act more uniformly, they would probably

become common to all the individuals of the species. We may hope

hereafter to understand something about the causes of such

occasional modifications, especially through the study of

monstrosities: hence the labours of experimentalists such as those

of M. Camille Dareste, are full of promise for the future. In

general we can only say that the cause of each slight variation and of

each monstrosity lies much more in the constitution of the organism,

than in the nature of the surrounding conditions; though new and

changed conditions certainly play an important part in exciting

organic changes of many kinds.

  Through the means just specified, aided perhaps by others as yet

undiscovered, man has been raised to his present state. But since he

attained to the rank of manhood, he has diverged into distinct

races, or as they may be more fitly called, sub-species. Some of

these, such as the Negro and European, are so distinct that, if

specimens had been brought to a naturalist without any further

information, they would undoubtedly have been considered by him as

good and true species. Nevertheless all the races agree in so many

unimportant details of structure and in so many mental peculiarities

that these can be accounted for only by inheritance from a common

progenitor; and a progenitor thus characterised would probably deserve

to rank as man.

  It must not be supposed that the divergence of each race from the

other races, and of all from a common stock, can be traced back to any

one pair of progenitors. On the contrary, at every stage in the

process of modification, all the individuals which were in any way

better fitted for their conditions of life, though in different

degrees, would have survived in greater numbers than the less

well-fitted. The process would have been like that followed by man,

when he does not intentionally select particular individuals, but

breeds from all the superior individuals, and neglects the inferior.

He thus slowly but surely modifies his stock, and unconsciously

forms a new strain. So with respect to modifications acquired

independently of selection, and due to variations arising from the

nature of the organism and the action of the surrounding conditions,

or from changed habits of life, no single pair will have been modified

much more than the other pairs inhabiting the same country, for all

will have been continually blended through free intercrossing.

  By considering the embryological structure of man,- the homologies

which he presents with the lower animals,- the rudiments which he

retains,- and the reversions to which he is liable, we can partly

recall in imagination the former condition of our early progenitors;

and can approximately place them in their proper place in the

zoological series. We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy,

tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant

of the Old World. This creature, if its whole structure had been

examined by a naturalist, would have been classed amongst the

Quadrumana, as surely as the still more ancient progenitor of the

Old and New World monkeys. The Quadrumana and all the higher mammals

are probably derived from an ancient marsupial animal, and this

through a long series of diversified forms, from some amphibian-like

creature, and this again from some fish-like animal. In the dim

obscurity of the past we can see that the early progenitor of all

the Vertebrata must have been an aquatic animal provided with

branchiae, with the two sexes united in the same individual, and

with the most important organs of the body (such as the brain and

heart) imperfectly or not at all developed. This animal seems to

have been more like the larvae of the existing marine ascidians than

any other known form.



  The high standard of our intellectual powers and moral disposition

is the greatest difficulty which presents itself, after we have been

driven to this conclusion on the origin of man. But every one who

admits the principle of evolution, must see that the mental powers

of the higher animals, which are the same in kind with those of man,

though so different in degree, are capable of advancement. Thus the

interval between the mental powers of one of the higher apes and of

a fish, or between those of an ant and scale-insect, is immense; yet

their development does not offer any special difficulty; for with

our domesticated animals, the mental faculties are certainly variable,

and the variations are inherited. No one doubts that they are of the

utmost importance to animals in a state of nature. Therefore the

conditions are favourable for their development through natural

selection. The same conclusion may be extended to man; the intellect

must have been all-important to him, even at a very remote period,

as enabling him to invent and use language, to make weapons, tools,

traps, &c., whereby with the aid of his social habits, he long ago

became the most dominant of all living creatures.

  A great stride in the development of the intellect will have

followed, as soon as the half-art and half-instinct of language came

into use; for the continued use of language will have reacted on the

brain and produced an inherited effect; and this again will have

reacted on the improvement of language. As Mr. Chauncey Wright* has

well remarked, the largeness of the brain in man relatively to his

body, compared with the lower animals, may be attributed in chief part

to the early use of some simple form of language,- that wonderful

engine which affixes signs to all sorts of objects and qualities,

and excites trains of thought which would never arise from the mere

impression of the senses, or if they did arise could not be followed

out. The higher intellectual powers of man, such as those of

ratiocination, abstraction, self-consciousness, &c., probably follow

from the continued improvement and exercise of the other mental

faculties.



  * "On the Limits of Natural Selection," in the North American

Review, Oct., 1870, p. 295.



  The development of the moral qualities is a more interesting

problem. The foundation lies in the social instincts, including

under this term the family ties. These instincts are highly complex,

and in the case of the lower animals give special tendencies towards

certain definite actions; but the more important elements are love,

and the distinct emotion of sympathy. Animals endowed with the

social instincts take pleasure in one another's company, warn one

another of danger, defend and aid one another in many ways. These

instincts do not extend to all the individuals of the species, but

only to those of the same community. As they are highly beneficial

to the species, they have in all probability been acquired through

natural selection.

  A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past

actions and their motives- of approving of some and disapproving of

others; and the fact that man is the one being who certainly

deserves this designation, is the greatest of all distinctions between

him and the lower animals. But in the fourth chapter I have

endeavoured to shew that the moral sense follows, firstly, from the

enduring and ever-present nature of the social instincts; secondly,

from man's appreciation of the approbation and disapprobation of his

fellows; and thirdly, from the high activity of his mental

faculties, with past impressions extremely vivid; and in these

latter respects he differs from the lower animals. Owing to this

condition of mind, man cannot avoid looking both backwards and

forwards, and comparing past impressions. Hence after some temporary

desire or passion has mastered his social instincts, he reflects and

compares the now weakened impression of such past impulses with the

ever-present social instincts; and he then feels that sense of

dissatisfaction which all unsatisfied instincts leave behind them,

he therefore resolves to act differently for the future,- and this

is conscience. Any instinct, permanently stronger or more enduring

than another, gives rise to a feeling which we express by saying

that it ought to be obeyed. A pointer dog, if able to reflect on his

past conduct, would say to himself, I ought (as indeed we say of

him) to have pointed at that hare and not have yielded to the

passing temptation of hunting it.

  Social animals are impelled partly by a wish to aid the members of

their community in a general manner, but more commonly to perform

certain definite actions. Man is impelled by the same general wish

to aid his fellows; but has few or no special instincts. He differs

also from the lower animals in the power of expressing his desires

by words, which thus become a guide to the aid required and

bestowed. The motive to give aid is likewise much modified in man:

it no longer consists solely of a blind instinctive impulse, but is

much influenced by the praise or blame of his fellows. The

appreciation and the bestowal of praise and blame both rest on

sympathy; and this emotion, as we have seen, is one of the most

important elements of the social instincts. Sympathy, though gained as

an instinct, is also much strengthened by exercise or habit. As all

men desire their own happiness, praise or blame is bestowed on actions

and motives, according as they lead to this end; and as happiness is

an essential part of the general good, the greatest-happinesss

principle indirectly serves as a nearly safe standard of right and

wrong. As the reasoning powers advance and experience is gained, the

remoter effects of certain lines of conduct on the character of the

individual, and on the general good, are perceived; and then the

self-regarding virtues come within the scope of public opinion, and

receive praise, and their opposites blame. But with the less civilised

nations reason often errs, and many bad customs and base superstitions

come within the same scope, and are then esteemed as high virtues, and

their breach as heavy crimes.

  The moral faculties are generally and justly esteemed as of higher

value than the intellectual powers. But we should bear in mind that

the activity of the mind in vividly recalling past impressions is

one of the fundamental though secondary bases of conscience. This

affords the strongest argument for educating and stimulating in all

possible ways the intellectual faculties of every human being. No

doubt a man with a torpid mind, if his social affections and

sympathies are well developed, will be led to good actions, and may

have a fairly sensitive conscience. But whatever renders the

imagination more vivid and strengthens the habit of recalling and

comparing past impressions, will make the conscience more sensitive,

and may even somewhat compensate for weak social affections and

sympathies.

  The moral nature of man has reached its present standard, partly

through the advancement of his reasoning powers and consequently of

a just public opinion, but especially from his sympathies having

been rendered more tender and widely diffused through the effects of

habit, example, instruction, and reflection. It is not improbable that

after long practice virtuous tendencies may be inherited. With the

more civilised races, the conviction of the existence of an all-seeing

Deity has had a potent influence on the advance of morality.

Ultimately man does not accept the praise or blame of his fellows as

his sole guide, though few escape this influence, but his habitual

convictions, controlled by reason, afford him the safest rule. His

conscience then becomes the supreme judge and monitor. Nevertheless

the first foundation or origin of the moral sense lies in the social

instincts, including sympathy; and these instincts no doubt were

primarily gained, as in the case of the lower animals, through natural

selection.



  The belief in God has often been advanced as not only the

greatest, but the most complete of all the distinctions between man

and the lower animals. It is however impossible, as we have seen, to

maintain that this belief is innate or instinctive in man. On the

other hand a belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies seems to be

universal; and apparently follows from a considerable advance in man's

reason, and from a still greater advance in his faculties of

imagination, curiosity and wonder. I am aware that the assumed

instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument

for His existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be

compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant

spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for the belief in

them is far more general than in a beneficent Deity. The idea of a

universal and beneficent Creator does not seem to arise in the mind of

man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture.

  He who believes in the advancement of man from some low organised

form, will naturally ask how does this bear on the belief in the

immortality of the soul. The barbarous races of man, as Sir J. Lubbock

has shewn, possess no clear belief of this kind; but arguments derived

from the primeval beliefs of savages are, as we have just seen, of

little or no avail. Few persons feel any anxiety from the

impossibility of determining at what precise period in the development

of the individual, from the first trace of a minute germinal

vesicle, man becomes an immortal being; and there is no greater

cause for anxiety because the period cannot possibly be determined

in the gradually ascending organic scale.*



  * The Rev. J. A. Picton gives a discussion to this effect in his New

Theories and the Old Faith, 1870.



  I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be

denounced by some as highly irreligious; but he who denounces them

is bound to shew why it is more irreligious to explain the origin of

man as a distinct species by descent from some lower form, through the

laws of variation and natural selection, than to explain the birth

of the individual through the laws of ordinary reproduction. The birth

both of the species and of the individual are equally parts of that

grand sequence of events, which our minds refuse to accept as the

result of blind chance. The understanding revolts at such a

conclusion, whether or not we are able to believe that every slight

variation of structure,- the union of each pair in marriage, the

dissemination of each seed,- and other such events, have all been

ordained for some special purpose.



  Sexual selection has been treated at great length in this work; for,

as I have attempted to shew, it has played an important part in the

history of the organic world. I am aware that much remains doubtful,

but I have endeavoured to give a fair view of the whole case. In the

lower divisions of the animal kingdom, sexual selection seems to

have done nothing: such animals are often affixed for life to the same

spot, or have the sexes combined in the same individual, or what is

still more important, their perceptive and intellectual faculties

are not sufficiently advanced to allow of the feelings of love and

jealousy, or of the exertion of choice. When, however, we come to

the Arthropoda and Vertebrata, even to the lowest classes in these two

great sub-kingdoms, sexual selection has effected much.

  In the several great classes of the animal kingdom,- in mammals,

birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, and even crustaceans,- the

differences between the sexes follow nearly the same rules. The

males are almost always the wooers; and they alone are armed with

special weapons for fighting with their rivals. They are generally

stronger and larger than the females, and are endowed with the

requisite qualities of courage and pugnacity. They are provided,

either exclusively or in a much higher degree than the females, with

organs for vocal or instrumental music, and with odoriferous glands.

They are ornamental with infinitely diversified appendages, and with

the most brilliant or conspicuous colours, often arranged in elegant

patterns, whilst the females are unadorned. When the sexes differ in

more important structures, it is the male which is provided with

special sense-organs for discovering the female, with locomotive

organs for reaching her, and often with prehensile organs for

holding her. These various structures for charming or securing the

female are often developed in the male during only part of the year,

namely the breeding-season. They have in many cases been more or

less transferred to the females; and in the latter case they often

appear in her as mere rudiments. They are lost or never gained by

the males after emasculation. Generally they are not developed in

the male during early youth, but appear a short time before the age

for reproduction. Hence in most cases the young of both sexes resemble

each other; and the female somewhat resembles her young offspring

throughout life. In almost every great class a few anomalous cases

occur, where there has been an almost complete transposition of the

characters proper to the two sexes; the females assuming characters

which properly belong to the males. This surprising uniformity in

the laws regulating the differences between the sexes in so many and

such widely separated classes, is intelligible if we admit the

action of one common cause, namely sexual selection.

  Sexual selection depends on the success of certain individuals

over others of the same sex, in relation to the propagation of the

species; whilst natural selection depends on the success of both

sexes, at all ages, in relation to the general conditions of life. The

sexual struggle is of two kinds; in the one it is between

individuals of the same sex, generally the males, in order to drive

away or kill their rivals, the females remaining passive; whilst in

the other, the struggle is likewise between the individuals of the

same sex, in order to excite or charm those of the opposite sex,

generally the females, which no longer remain passive, but select

the more agreeable partners. This latter kind of selection is

closely analogous to that which man unintentionally, yet

effectually, brings to bear on his domesticated productions, when he

preserves during a long period the most pleasing or useful

individuals, without any wish to modify the breed.

  The laws of inheritance determine whether characters gained

through sexual selection by either sex shall be transmitted to the

same sex, or to both; as well as the age at which they shall be

developed. It appears that variations arising late in life are

commonly transmitted to one and the same sex. Variability is the

necessary basis for the action of selection, and is wholly independent

of it. It follows from this, that variations of the same general

nature have often been taken advantage of and accumulated through

sexual selection in relation to the propagation of the species, as

well as through natural selection in relation to the general



purposes of life. Hence secondary sexual characters, when equally

transmitted to both sexes can be distinguished from ordinary

specific characters only by the light of analogy. The modifications

acquired through sexual selection are often so strongly pronounced

that the two sexes have frequently been ranked as distinct species, or

even as distinct genera. Such strongly-marked differences must be in

some manner highly important; and we know that they have been acquired

in some instances at the cost not only of inconvenience, but of

exposure to actual danger.

  The belief in the power of sexual selection rests chiefly on the

following considerations. Certain characters are confined to one

sex; and this alone renders it probable that in most cases they are

connected with the act of reproduction. In innumerable instances these

characters are fully developed only at maturity, and often during only

a part of the year, which is always the breeding-season. The males

(passing over a few exceptional cases) are the more active in

courtship; they are the better armed, and are rendered the more

attractive in various ways. It is to be especially observed that the

males display their attractions with elaborate care in the presence of

the females; and that they rarely or never display them excepting

during the season of love. It is incredible that all this should be

purposeless. Lastly we have distinct evidence with some quadrupeds and

birds, that the individuals of one sex are capable of feeling a strong

antipathy or preference for certain individuals of the other sex.

  Bearing in mind these facts, and the marked results of man's

unconscious selection, when applied to domesticated animals and

cultivated plants, it seems to me almost certain that if the

individuals of one sex were during a long series of generations to

prefer pairing with certain individuals of the other sex,

characterised in some peculiar manner, the offspring would slowly

but surely become modified in this same manner. I have not attempted

to conceal that, excepting when the males are more numerous than the

females, or when polygamy prevails, it is doubtful how the more

attractive males succeed in leaving a large number of offspring to

inherit their superiority in ornaments or other charms than the less

attractive males; but I have shewn that this would probably follow

from the females,- especially the more vigorous ones, which would be

the first to breed,- preferring not only the more attractive but at

the same time the more vigorous and victorious males.

  Although we have some positive evidence that birds appreciate bright

and beautiful objects, as with the bower-birds of Australia, and

although they certainly appreciate the power of song, yet I fully

admit that it is astonishing that the females of many birds and some

mammals should be endowed with sufficient taste to appreciate

ornaments, which we have reason to attribute to sexual selection;

and this is even more astonishing in the case of reptiles, fish, and

insects. But we really know little about the minds of the lower

animals. It cannot be supposed, for instance, that male birds of

paradise or peacocks should take such pains in erecting, spreading,

and vibrating their beautiful plumes before the females for no

purpose. We should remember the fact given on excellent authority in a

former chapter, that several peahens, when debarred from an admired

male, remained widows during a whole season rather than pair with

another bird.

  Nevertheless I know of no fact in natural history more wonderful

than that the female Argus pheasant should appreciate the exquisite

shading of the ball-and-socket ornaments and the elegant patterns on

the wing-feather of the male. He who thinks that the male was

created as he now exists must admit that the great plumes, which

prevent the wings from being used for flight, and which are

displayed during courtship and at no other time in a manner quite

peculiar to this one species, were given to him as an ornament. If so,

he must likewise admit that the female was created and endowed with

the capacity of appreciating such ornaments. I differ only in the

conviction that the male Argus pheasant acquired his beauty gradually,

through the preference of the females during many generations for

the more highly ornamented males; the aesthetic capacity of the

females having been advanced through exercise or habit, just as our

own taste is gradually improved. In the male through the fortunate

chance of a few feathers being left unchanged, we can distinctly trace

how simple spots with a little fulvous shading on one side may have

been developed by small steps into the wonderful ball-and-socket

ornaments; and it is probable that they were actually thus developed.

  Everyone who admits the principle of evolution, and yet feels

great difficulty in admitting that female mammals, birds, reptiles,

and fish, could have acquired the high taste implied by the beauty

of the males, and which generally coincides with our own standard,

should reflect that the nerve-cells of the brain in the highest as

well as in the lowest members of the vertebrate series, are derived

from those of the common progenitor of this great kingdom. For we

can thus see how it has come to pass that certain mental faculties, in

various and widely distinct groups of animals, have been developed

in nearly the same manner and to nearly the same degree.

  The reader who has taken the trouble to go through the several

chapters devoted to sexual selection, will be able to judge how far

the conclusions at which I have arrived are supported by sufficient

evidence. If he accepts these conclusions he may, I think, safely

extend them to mankind; but it would be superfluous here to repeat

what I have so lately said on the manner in which sexual selection

apparently has acted on man, both on the male and female side, causing

the two sexes to differ in body and mind, and the several races to

differ from each other in various characters, as well as from their

ancient and lowly-organised progenitors.

  He who admits the principle of sexual selection will be led to the

remarkable conclusion that the nervous system not only regulates

most of the existing functions of the body, but has indirectly

influenced the progressive development of various bodily structures

and of certain mental qualities. Courage, pugnacity, perseverance,

strength and size of body, weapons of all kinds, musical organs,

both vocal and instrumental, bright colours and ornamental appendages,

have all been indirectly gained by the one sex or the other, through

the exertion of choice, the influence of love and jealousy, and the

appreciation of the beautiful in sound, colour or form; and these

powers of the mind manifestly depend on the development of the brain.



  Man scans with scrupulous care the character and pedigree of his

horses, cattle, and dogs before he matches them; but when he comes

to his own marriage he rarely, or never, takes any such care. He is

impelled by nearly the same motives as the lower animals, when they

are left to their own free choice, though he is in so far superior

to them that he highly values mental charms and virtues. On the

other hand he is strongly attracted by mere wealth or rank. Yet he

might by selection do something not only for the bodily constitution

and frame of his offspring, but for their intellectual and moral

qualities. Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in

any marked degree inferior in body or mind; but such hopes are Utopian

and will never be even partially realised until the laws of

inheritance are thoroughly known. Everyone does good service, who aids

towards this end. When the principles of breeding and inheritance

are better understood, we shall not hear ignorant members of our

legislature rejecting with scorn a plan for ascertaining whether or

not consanguineous marriages are injurious to man.

  The advancement of the welfare of mankind is a most intricate

problem: all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject

poverty for their children; for poverty is not only a great evil,

but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in

marriage. On the other hand, as Mr. Galton has remarked, if the

prudent avoid marriage, whilst the reckless marry, the inferior

members tend to supplant the better members of society. Man, like

every other animal, has no doubt advanced to his present high

condition through a struggle for existence consequent on his rapid

multiplication; and if he is to advance still higher, it is to be

feared that he must remain subject to a severe struggle. Otherwise

he would sink into indolence, and the more gifted men would not be

more successful in the battle of life than the less gifted. Hence

our natural rate of increase, though leading to many and obvious

evils, must not be greatly diminished by any means. There should be

open competition for all men; and the most able should not be

prevented by laws or customs from succeeding best and rearing the

largest number of offspring. Important as the struggle for existence

has been and even still is, yet as far as the highest part of man's

nature is concerned there are other agencies more important. For the

moral qualities are advanced, either directly or indirectly, much more

through the effects of habit, the reasoning powers, instruction,

religion, &c., than through natural selection; though to this latter

agency may be safely attributed the social instincts, which afforded

the basis for the development of the moral sense.



  The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely, that man is

descended from some lowly organised form, will, I regret to think,

be highly distasteful to many. But there can hardly be a doubt that we

are descended from barbarians. The astonishment which I felt on

first seeing a party of Fuegians on a wild and broken shore will never

be forgotten by me, for the reflection at once rushed into my mind-

such were our ancestors. These men were absolutely naked and

bedaubed with paint, their long hair was tangled, their mouths frothed

with excitement, and their expression was wild, startled, and

distrustful. They possessed hardly any arts, and like wild animals

lived on what they could catch; they had no government, and were

merciless to every one not of their own small tribe. He who has seen a

savage in his native land will not feel much shame, if forced to

acknowledge that the blood of some more humble creature flows in his

veins. For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic

little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the

life of his keeper, or from that old baboon, who descending from the

mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of

astonished dogs- as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies,

offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse,

treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by

the grossest superstitions.

  Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though

not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic

scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having been

aboriginally placed there, may give him hope for a still higher

destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with

hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason permits us to

discover it; and I have given the evidence to the best of my

ability. We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man

with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most

debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to

the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has

penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system-

with all these exalted powers- Man still bears in his bodily frame the

indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
Last updated: Friday, 30-Jan-98 10:45:17 MST