The only rational hypothesis of human origin in the present state of our knowledge of this subject is, that man must have been produced under some circumstances in which animal food was not necessary to him, in which he was exempt from the attacks of the more formidable animals, and in less need of protection from the inclemency of the weather then is the case with any modern apes; and that his life as a hunter and warrior began after he had by his knowledge and skill secured to himself the means of subduing nature by force and cunning. This implies that man was from the first a rational being, capable of understanding nature, and it accords much more nearly with the old story of Eden in the book of Genesis, then with any modern theories of evolution. It is due to Mr. Wallace--who, next to Darwin, has been a leader among English derivationists--to state that he perceives this difficulty. As a believer in natural selection, however, it presents itself to his mind in a peculiar form. He perceives that so soon as, by the process of evolution, man became a rational creature, and acquired his social sympathies, physical evolution must cease, and must be replaced by invention, contrivance, and social organisation. This is at once obvious and undeniable, and it follows that the natural selection applicable to man, as man, must relate purely to his mental and moral improvement. Wallace, however, fails to comprehend the full significance of this feature of the case. Given, a man destitute of clothing, he may never acquire such clothing by natural selection, because he will provide an artificial substitute. He will evolve not into a hairy animal, but into a weaver and a tailor. Given, a man destitute of claws and fangs, he will not acquire these, but will manufacture weapons. But then, on the hypothesis of derivation, this is not what is given us as the raw material of man, but instead of this a hairy ape. Admitting the power of natural selection, we might understand how this ape could become more hairy, or acquire more formidable weapons, as it became more exposed to cold, or more under the necessity of using animal food; but that it should of itself leave this natural line of development and enter on the entirely different line of mental progress is not conceivable, except as a result of creative intervention.