44 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



were the best for fighting, or the most admired by the 

 female. But sexual selection might affect characters 

 which were not limited in inheritance ; for example, 

 the black of negroes might be due to the preference by 

 either or both sexes for the darkest skin, but this is 

 not a probable view. 



In a short paper like the present I can only give a 

 very imperfect outline of the subject, but I hope I 

 have said enough to show that anthropology requires 

 to be re-investigated from modern points of view. 

 My own provisional conclusions are that man affords 

 an example of a single species which has started a new 

 group, which might become a genus or family. Other 

 genera or families may have originated in this way by 

 a single species adopting a new mode of life. The 

 evidence does not seem to me to support the view 

 that all human characters, adaptive and non-adaptive, 

 can be regarded as mutations independent in their 

 origin of habits or functional or other stimuli. The 

 evidence seems to me to agree with the view I take 

 of animals in general, that adaptive characters are 

 due, not to selection, but to the effects of functional 

 and physical stimulation, and that diagnostic 

 characters are not adaptive and therefore not due 

 to selection, but to blastogenic variation. 



Mr. Cunningham's paper read to tlie Mendel Society in February 

 1908, was published in "Science Progress" in the following October.- 

 We are indebted to Mr. John Murray the publisher, for kind per- 

 mission to reprint the article. 



