384 SEXUAL SELECTION : MAN. Part IL 



all that I have written in the later chapters on man. 

 We cannot positively say that this character, but not 

 that, lias been thus modified ; it has, however, been 

 shewn that the races of man differ from each other and 

 from their nearest allies amongst the lower animals, in 

 certain characters which are of no service to them in 

 their ordinary habits of life, and which it is extremely 

 probable would have been modified through sexual selec- 

 tion. We have seen that with the lowest savages the 

 people of each tribe admire their own characteristic 

 qualities, — the shape of the head and face, the square- 

 ness of the cheek-bones, the prominence or depression 

 of the nose, the colour of the skin, the length of the 

 hair on the head, the absence of hair on the face and 

 body, or the presence of a great beard, and so forth. 

 Hence these and other such points could hardly fail to 

 have been slowly and gradually exaggerated from the 

 more powerful and able men in each tribe, who would 

 succeed in rearing the largest number of offspring, hav- 

 ing selected during many generations as their wives the 

 most strongly characterised and therefore most attrac- 

 tive women. For my own part I conclude that of all 

 the causes which have led to the differences in external 

 appearance between the races of man, and to a certain 

 extent between man and the lower animals, sexual 

 selection has been by far the most efficient. 



