1860-1882] DESCENTOFMAN 35 



cause of external modification. I hope you may get the Letter 

 returns from the Army. 1 They would be very interesting, 

 but I do not expect the results would be favourable to 

 your view. 



With regard to the constant battles of savages leading to 

 selection of physical superiority, I think it would be very 

 imperfect and subject to so many exceptions and irregulari- 

 ties that it could produce no definite result. For instance : 

 the strongest and bravest men would lead, and expose them- 

 selves most, and would therefore be most subject to wounds 

 and death. And the physical energy which led to any one 

 tribe delighting in war, might lead to its extermination, by 

 inducing quarrels with all surrounding tribes and leading 

 them to combine against it. Again, superior cunning, stealth, 

 and swiftness of foot, or even better weapons, would often 

 lead to victory as well as mere physical strength. Moreover, 

 this kind of more or less perpetual war goes on among all 

 savage peoples. It could lead, therefore, to no differential 

 characters, but merely to the keeping up of a certain average 

 standard of bodily and mental health and vigour. 



So with selection of variations adapted to special habits 

 of life as fishing, paddling, riding, climbing, etc., etc., in 

 different races, no doubt it must act to some extent, but will 

 it be ever so rigid as to induce a definite physical modifica- 

 tion, and can we imagine it to have had any part in producing 

 the distinct races that now exist ? 



The sexual selection you allude to will also, I think, have 

 been equally uncertain in its results. In the very lowest 

 tribes there is rarely much polygamy, and women are more 

 or less a matter of purchase. There is also little difference 

 of social condition, and I think it rarely happens that any 

 healthy and undeformed man remains without wife and 

 children. I very much doubt the often-repeated assertion 

 that our aristocracy are more beautiful than the middle 

 classes. I allow that they present specimens of the highest 

 kind of beauty, but I doubt the average. I have noticed in 

 country places a greater average amount of good looks among 

 the middle classes, and besides we unavoidably combine in 



1 Measurements taken of more than one million soldiers in the 

 United States showed that " local influences of some kind act directly on 

 structure." Descent of Man, 1901, p. 45. 



