No. 4.] NICHOLSON — SEXUAL SELECTION IN MAN. 455 



courtship, when his excitement led him to express himself in 

 harmonious tones and cadences. On this view, '' musical tones 

 would be likely to excite in us, in a vague nnd indefinite manner, 

 the strong emotions of a long past age."' So that, the emotions 

 which we feel on listening to one of the productions of a great 

 composer stand on no higher level than the impulse felt by dogs 

 which leads them to turn round and round on the carpet as if to 

 trample down grass to form their bed ; both alike being vague 

 associations inherited from some aboriginal ancestor ! Water, 

 however, rises no higher than its source ; and it would be diflS- 

 cult to show how the complicated and wholly inexpressible 

 emotions evoked by music, from their vague and indefinite 

 nature, could ever have been developed out of the emotions felt 

 by one of our savage ancestors in the performance of what, on 

 Darwinian principles, must have been a purely animal function. 

 Natural selection, certainly, never could have led to such a 

 development, for it would need very strong evidence to establish 

 the view that the appreciation of music is in any way beneficial 

 either to the individual or the species ; p.nd there are no grounds 

 for belie vins: that sexual selection could have brouaht about such 

 a fundamental chan&e. 



An elaborate account is next given of the habits of savages, 

 in order to prove that men in all states of civilization, but espe- 

 cially in the lowest, are more or less influenced in their mar- 

 riages by the beauty of the women. No one, we take it, will 

 hesitate to admit this to the fullest extent, so that it is hardly 

 necessary to devote any time to the demonstration of the fact 

 that beauty, in all times and amongst all peoples, is a mere mat- 

 ter of taste ; features which are admired by one man being 

 regarded as hideous by another. Admitting that men are in 

 many cases influenced in their choice of a wife by mere external 

 appearances, we have to enquire whether '' the consequent selec- 

 tion during many generations of those women which appear to 

 the man of each race the most attractive, has altered the char- 

 acter either of the females alone or of both sexes." Mr. Darwin 

 answers this enquiry in the afiirmative, and though he adduces 

 no very strong evidence in support of this view, we see no reason 

 for doubting its general correctness. If, in fact, we admit that 

 man is an animal at all, and no reasonable person would dispute 

 this proposition, we must admit that he is amenable to the 

 general laws which govern the improvement of the various breeds 



