Chap. XX. SUMMARY. 383 



themselves, 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 to man as he now 

 exists. The females apparently were first denuded of 

 hair in like manner 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 purj)ose and through the 

 same means ; so that women have acquired sweeter 

 voices and become more beautiful than men. 



It deserves particular attention that with mankind 

 all the conditions for sexual selection were much more 

 favourable, 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 con- 

 clude, have been guided more by his instinctive passions, 

 and less by foresight or reason. He would not then 

 have been so utterly licentious as many savages now are ; 

 and each male would have jealously guarded his wife or 

 wives. He would not then 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 during a very 

 remote epoch ; and this conclusion throws light on the 

 remarkable fact that at the most ancient period, of which 

 we have as yet obtained 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 scien- 

 tific precision. He who does not admit this agency in 

 the case of the lower animals, will properly disregard 



