The Origin of Human Races and the Antiquity of Man Deduced from Natural Selection

...cover the globe over time if left undisturbed, by ceasing to be the same animal or plant. That is the maximum extent of what anyone would concede from Darwin’s theory. Mr. Darwin himself does not fully see the consequences of his theory's core principle. It is not merely a theory about the struggle for existence between one animal and another; therefore, the idea that as man's mind develops, he can overcome all climatic difficulties is entirely contrary to all observed facts.

If it is claimed that the European mind is so highly developed that it has lost the power to control the physical body—that the pendulum has swung so far it cannot return—then why can the European produce no effect on those races that have not developed far beyond an animal state, such as the negro A standard 19th-century term for sub-Saharan African peoples, now considered dated or offensive or the inhabitant of Tierra del Fuego original: "Land of Fire"; an archipelago at the southern tip of South America? Even when European intellect is applied in every possible way to help these people live outside their native zones, it cannot make them flourish any more than it can his own descendants. They perish in a temperate zone just as much as the European perishes in a tropical one.

Furthermore, if we suppose the highly intellectual European is the descendant of one original tribe or parent, we have every reason to believe he has passed through all these phases—that he has survived a tropical epoch, a glacial epoch, and a temperate epoch. Now, if our ancestors lived through all these stages, why are we now incapable of surviving in climates where they once thrived? Here the theory fails again, and I found nothing in Mr. Wallace’s paper to answer this objection. In fact, in both his paper and Darwin’s book, the "struggle for existence" has been viewed only as a contest between closely related animals or different species. It has not been considered as the struggle any animal must face against climatic conditions if it wishes to spread over the entire globe—which Mr. Wallace seems to think a single, uniform race could do.

Mr. REDDIE: Having recently given my opinion on the theory of the origin of species at length in a paper, I now only wish to ask Mr. Wallace one or two questions, as I would like to see this theory fully developed. However, I must observe that I think he has raised a false issue by trying to connect the varieties within a single species of living animals to Mr. Darwin’s theory. Strictly speaking, that theory deals with the "origin of species" by natural selection, not with the origin of varieties.

I will not delve into the speculative details Mr. Wallace so eloquently presented regarding an imaginary world. I find them extremely Utopian Idealistic to the point of being impractical or impossible; when his paper is compared with the recorded history of the human race, it will be found totally inconsistent with human experience. For example, regarding cold climates: he suggests those living in the coldest regions would have the best houses and clothing. If we compare the Esquimaux An archaic term for Inuit or Yupik peoples and the English, the idea is clearly absurd. But I do not wish to dwell on these details, because I believe they lead us—