No. 4.] NICHOLSON^SEXtJAL SELECTION IN MAN. 451 



are dealing with anything but a male ? There are the strongest 

 grounds for the belief that the characters which distinguish the 

 two sexes lie far deeper than the mere physical structure. The 

 difiference between the male and female, in man at any rate, 

 seems to be a fundamental one, in which the entire nature is 

 involved ; and the male, when artificially mutilated, no more 

 ceases to be a male, than a man ceases to be a man when his leg- 

 has been amputated. It is true that the mutilation has rendered 

 him imperfect in one very important aspect of his nature ; but 

 the difierence is bodily, not mental, and he cannot do otherwise 

 than remain a male as regards his essential nature. It is quite 

 true, also, that as in the case of emasculated animals, the bodily 

 incapacity is accompanied by a deficiency in certain mental at- 

 tributes which minister to the corporeal function. Thus, the 

 mutilated might very possibly be less courageous or pugnacious 

 than the normal man. Still, we cannot believe that the deeper 

 differences which fundamentally separate the man from the 

 woman, are in any way affected by such a mutilation. We should, 

 at any rate, require much more evidence than we hold at present 

 before concluding that such mutilated males are not distinguished 

 by just those mental characters (with the exception of the above) 

 which are afterwards enumerated by Darwin as distinguishing 

 the male from the female in the human species. 



Having discussed the physical differences between the male 

 and female, Mr. Darwin, under the head of " Law of Battle," 

 next endeavours to show that man, in his earlier stages at any 

 rate, must have had to fight for his wife, and that success in 

 marriage must have been to the strongest, in most, if not in all 

 cases. No doubt if this could be shown, there would be a reason- 

 able probability that the race might have been much improved 

 in this way, the strongest and most powerful males leaving the 

 largest number of children, and these inheriting the physical 

 characters to which the success of their fathers was due. We 

 cannot think, however, that Mr. Darwin sufficiently recognizes to 

 what an extent even the lowest savage is something more than a 

 mere animal, and how largely the spiritual element enters into 

 bis composition. Taking the savage races known to us — and we 

 have no right to speak dogmatically as to the supposed habits of 

 a hypothetical and still more degraded race — Professor Huxley 

 has recently admitted that the intellectual labour of a good hun- 

 ter or warrior '• considerably exceeds that of an ordinary English- 



