gan subserves this function, but it has
been supposed that it is ministered to by the fibres _of Corti_.[301] Now
it can hardly be contended that the preservation of any race of men in the
struggle for life could have depended on such an extreme delicacy and
refinement of the internal ear,[302]--a perfection only fully exercised in
the enjoyment and appreciation of the most exquisite musical performances.
Here, surely, we have an instance of an organ preformed, ready beforehand
for such action as could never by itself have been the cause of its
development,--the action having only been subsequent, not anterior. The
Author is not aware what may be the minute structure of the internal ear in
the highest apes, but if (as from analogy is probable) it is much as in
man, then _a fortiori_ we have an instance of _anticipatory_ development of
a most marked and unmistakable kind. And this is not all. There is no {280}
reason to suppose that any animal besides man appreciates musical
_harmony_. It is certain that no other one _produces_ it.

Mr. Wallace also urges objections drawn from the origin of some of man's
mental faculties, such as "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--and for those
abstract notions of form and number which render geometry and arithmetic
possible," also from the origin of the moral sense.[303]

The validity of these objections is fully conceded by the Author of this
book, but he would push it much further, and contend (as has been now
repeatedly said), that another law, or other laws, than "Natural Selection"
have determined the evolution of _all_ organic forms, and of inorganic
forms also. And it must be contended that Mr. Wallace, in order to be quite
self-consistent, should arrive at the very same conclusion, inasmuch as he
is inclined to trace all phenomena to the action of superhuman WILL. He
says:[304] "If therefore we have traced one force, however minute, to an
origin in our own WILL, while we have no knowledge of any other primary
cause of force, it does not seem an improbable conclusion that all force
may be will-force; and thus, that the whole universe is not merely
dependent on, but actually _is_, the WILL of higher intelligences, or of
one Supreme Intelligence."

If there is really evidence, as Mr. Wallace believes, of the action of an
overruling intelligence