Note 466 — Chapter XX

‘Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection,’ 1870, p. 346. Mr. Wallace believes (p. 350) “that some intelligent power has guided or determined the development of man;” and he considers the hairless condition of the skin as coming under this head. The Rev. T. R. Stebbing, in commenting on this view (‘Transactions of Devonshire Assoc. for Science,’ 1870) remarks, that had Mr. Wallace “employed his usual ingenuity on the question of man’s hairless skin, he might have seen the possibility of its selection through its superior beauty or the health attaching to superior cleanliness. At any rate it is surprising that he should picture to himself a superior intelligence plucking the hair from the backs of savage men (to whom, according to his own account it would have been useful and beneficial), in order that the descendants of the poor shorn wretches might after many deaths from cold and damp in the course of many generations,” have been forced to raise themselves in the scale of civilisation through the practice of various arts, in the manner indicated by Mr. Wallace.