312 SEXUAL SELECTION: MAN. [Part II 



many subjects, the average standard of mental power in 

 man must be above that of woman. 



The half-human male progenitors of man, and men in a 

 savage state, have struggled together during many gener- 

 ations for the possession of the females. But mere bodily 

 strength and size would do little for victory, unless asso- 

 ciated with courage, perseverance, and determined energy. 

 With social animals, the young males have to pass through 

 many a contest before they win a female, and the older 

 males have to retain their females by renewed battles. 

 They have, also, in the case of man, to defend their*females 

 as well as their young from enemies of all kinds, and to 

 hunt for their joint subsistence. But to avoid enemies, 

 or to attack them with success, to capture wild animals, 

 and to invent and fashion weapons, requires the aid of the 

 higher mental faculties, namely, observation, reason, in- 

 vention, or imagination. These various faculties will thus 

 have been continually put to the test, and selected during 

 manhood ; they will, moreover, have been strengthened 

 by use during this same period of life. Consequently, in 

 accordance w r ith the principle often alluded to, we might 

 expect that they would at least tend to be transmitted 

 chiefly to the male offspring at the corresponding period 

 of manhood. 



Now, when two men are put into competition, or a 

 man with a woman, who possess every mental quality in 

 the same perfection, w r ith the exception that the one Las 

 higher energy, perseverance, and "•courage, this one will 

 generally become more eminent, whatever the object may 

 be, and will gain the victory." He may be said to possess 

 genius — for genius has been declared by a great authority 



23 J. Stuart Mill remarks ('The Subjection of Women,' 18G9, p. 122), 

 ''The things in which man most excels woman are those which require 

 most plodding, and long hammering at single thoughts." What is this 

 but energy antl perseverance? 



