s and nets, and neatly fitted and beautifully balanced spears;
that he learns to use these so as to be able to transfix a quartern
loaf at sixty yards; and that very often, as in the case of the
American Indians, the language of a savage exhibits complexities which
a well-trained European finds it difficult to master: consider that
every time a savage tracks his game, he employs a minuteness of
observation, and an accuracy of inductive and deductive reasoning
which, applied to other matters, would assure some reputation to a man
of science, and I think we need ask no further why he possesses such a
fair supply of brains. In complexity and difficulty, I should say that
the intellectual labour of a "good hunter or warrior" considerably
exceeds that of an ordinary Englishman. The Civil Service Examiners
are held in great terror by young Englishmen; but even their ferocity
never tempted them to require a candidate to possess such a knowledge
of a parish, as Mr. Wallace justly points out savages may possess of
an area a hundred miles, or more, in diameter.

But suppose, for the sake of argument, that a savage has more brains
than seems proportioned to his wants, all that can be said is that
the objection to natural selection, if it be one, applies quite
as strongly to the lower animals. The brain of a porpoise is quite
wonderful for its mass, and for the development of the cerebral
convolutions. And yet since we have ceased to credit the story of
Arion, it is hard to believe that porpoises are much troubled with
intellect: and still more difficult is it to imagine that their big
brains are only a preparation for the advent of some accomplished
cetacean of the future. Surely, again, a wolf must have too much
brains, or else how is it that a dog, with only the same quantity and
form of brain, is able to develop such singular intelligence? The wolf
stands to the dog in the same relation as the savage to the man; and,
therefore, if Mr. Wallace's doctrine holds good, a higher power must
have superintended the breeding up of wolves from some inferior stock,
in order to prepare them to become dogs.

Mr. Wallace further maintains that the origin of some of man's mental
faculties by the preservation of useful variations is not possible.
Such, for example, are "the capacity to form ideal conceptions of
space and time, of eternity and infinity; the capacity for intense
artistic feelings of pleasure in form, colour, and composition; an