The descent of man and selection in relation to sex / by Charles Darwin.

  • Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The descent of man and selection in relation to sex / by Charles Darwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    Summary.—We may conclude that the greater size, strength, courage, pugnacity, and energy of man, in comparison with woman, were acquired during primeval times, and have subse- quently been augmented, chiefly through the contests of rival males for the possession of the females. The greater intellectual vigour and power of invention in man is probably due to natural selection, combined with the inherited effects of habit, for the most able men will have succeeded best in defending and providing for themselves and for their wives and offspring. As far as the extreme intricacy of the subject permits us to judge, it appears that our male ape-like progenitors acquired their beards as an ornament to charm or excite the opposite sex, and transmitted them only to their male offspring. The females apparently first had their bodies denuded of hair, also as a sexual ornament; but they transmitted this character almost equally to both sexes. It is not improbable that the females were modified in other respects for the same purpose and by the same means; so that women have acquired sweeter voices and become more beautiful than men. It deserves attention that with mankind the conditions were in many respects much more favourable for sexual selection, during a very early period, when man had only just attained to the rank of manhood, than during later times. For he would then, as we may safely conclude, have been guided more by his instinctive passions, and less by foresight or reason. He would have jealously guarded his wife or wives. He would not have practised infanticide; nor valued his wives merely as useful slaves; nor have been betrothed to them during infancy. Hence we may infer that the races of men were differentiated, as far as sexual selection is concerned, in chief part at a very remote ipoch; and this conclusion throws light on the remarkable fact that at the most ancient period, of which we have as yet any record, the races of man had already come to differ nearly or quite as much as they do at the present day. The views here advanced, on the part which sexual selection has played in the history of man, want scientific precision. He who docs not admit this agency in the case of the lower animals, will disregard all that I have- written in the later chapters on man. We cannot positively say that this character, but not that, has been thus modified; it has, however, been shewn that the races of man differ from each other and from their nearest allies, in certain characters which are of no service to them in their daily habits of life, and which it is extremely probable would have been modified through sexual selection. We have seen that with the lowest savages the people of each tribe admire