think. For it must never be forgotten that the exceptional
character of the phenomena renders them conspicuous, the customary
more consorted combinations failing to excite attention.

Besides, there exists a reason for physical incongruity which does
not hold psychically. Nature sanctions the one while she
discountenances the other. Instead of the forethought she once
bestowed upon the body, it receives at her hands now but the
scantiest attention. Its development has ceased to be an object
with her. For some time past almost all her care has been devoted
to the evolution of the soul. The consequence is that physically
man is much less specialized than many other animals. In other
words, he is bodily less advanced in the race for competitive
extermination. He belongs to an antiquated, inefficient type of
mammal. His organism is still of the jack-of-all-trades pattern,
such as prevailed generally in the more youthful stages of organic
life--one not specially suited to any particular pursuit. Were it
not for his cerebral convolutions he could not compete for an
instant in the struggle for existence, and even the monkey would
reign in his stead. But brain is more effective than biceps, and a
being who can kill his opponent farther off than he can see him
evidently needs no great excellence of body to survive his foe.

The field of competition has thus been transferred from matter to
mind, but the fight has lost none of its keenness in consequence.
With the same zeal with which advantageous anatomical variations
were seized upon and perpetuated, psychical ones are now grasped and
rendered hereditary. Now if opposites were to fancy and wed one
another, such fortunate improvements would soon be lost. They would
be scattered over the community at large even it they escaped entire