644 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



might expect that they would at least tend to be trans- 

 mitted chiefly to the male offspring at the corresponding 

 period of manhood. 



\^ow, when two men are put into competition, or a man 

 with a woman, both possessed of every mental quality in 

 equal perfection, save that one has higher energy, perse- 

 verance and courage, the latter will generally become more 

 eminent in every i)ursuit and will gain the ascendency.* 

 lie may be said to possess genius for genius has been de- 

 clared by a great authority to be patience; and patience, in 

 this sense, means unflinching, undaunted perseverance. 

 But this view of genius is perhaps deficient; for without 

 the higher powers of the imagination and reason, no 

 eminent success can be gained in many subjects. These 

 latter faculties, as well as the former, will have been de- 

 iVeloped in man, partly through sexual selection that is, 

 ^through the contest of rival males, and partly through 

 natural selection that is, from success in the general 

 struggle for life; and as in both cases the struggle will have 

 been during maturity, the characters gained will have been 

 / transmitted more fully to the male than to the female off- 

 spring?) It accords in a striking manner with this view of 

 the modification and re-enforcement of many of our 

 mental faculties by sexual selection, that, firstly, they 

 notoriously undergo a considerable change at puberty,! 

 and, secondly, that eunuchs remain throughout life inferior 

 in these same qualities. Thus man has ultimately become 

 superior to w^oman. It is, indeed, fortunate that the law 

 of the equal transmission of characters to both sexes pre- 

 vails with mammals ; otherwise it is probable that man 

 would have become as superior in mental endowment to 

 woman, as the peacock is in ornamental plumage to the 

 peahen. 



It must be borne in mind that the tendency in char- 

 acters acquired by either sex late in life, to be transmitted 

 to the same sex at the same age, and of early acquired 

 characters to be transmitted to both sexes, are rules which, 

 though general, do not always hold. If they always held 



*J. Stuart Mill remarks (" The Subjection of Women," 1869, 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 and perseverance? 



f Maudsley, " Mind and Body," p. 31. 



