Page:Carroll Lane Fenton - A History of Evolution (1922).djvu/57

 54 that the white animal would populate the region, while his colored brethren would soon become extinct. The same principle, Darwin thought, applied to mental advantages; the more skillful mind triumphed over the less; the quick-witted animal lived at the expense of the clumsy-witted one. Throughout the earth, those animals most capable of living lived, brought forth young, and thus perpetuated their capabilities, both mental and physical. This process quite plainly helped in the development of man, and in his progress, but singularly enough, within this ranks today it does not operate. Great mental capacity is not today the most important survival factor among humanity. As the archeologist Keith has pointed out a great philosopher or artist may lead a life of misery, want, and despair, and leave no descendants, while a thoughtless, happy Burman will live out his days believing that the earth is flat and Buddha an all-powerful god, but will leave behind him a large and rapidly multiplying family.

During the years just prior to the appearance of the "Origin," Darwin had an almost complete confidence in the power of natural selection to account for all the phenomena of evolution. Even in the year when that work appeared, he wrote Lyell: "Grant a simple archetypal creature, like the Mud-fish or Lepidosiren, with five senses and some vestige of mind, and I believe Natural Selection will account for the production of every vertebrate animal." In publication, however, he was more