SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS. G69 



men with plainer wives, save the few who bequeath their 

 fortunes according to primogeniture. With respect to the 

 opposite form of selection, namely, of the more attractive 

 men by the women, although in civilized nations women 

 have free or almost free choice, which is not the case with 

 barbarous races, yet their choice is largely influenced by 

 the social position and wealth of the men; and the success 

 of the latter in life depends much on their intellectual 

 powers and energy, or on the fruits of these same powers 

 in their forefathers. No excuse is needed for treating this 

 subject in some detail; for, as the German philosopher 

 Schopenhauer remarks, '^ the final aim of all love intrigues, 

 be they comic or tragic, is really of more importance than 

 all other ends in human life. What it all turns upon is 

 nothing less than the composition of the next genera- 

 tion. . . . It is not the weal or woe of any one indi- 

 vidual, but that oi the human race to come, which is here 

 at stake."* 



There is, however, reason to believe that in certain civil- 

 ized and semi-civilized nations sexual selection has effected 

 something in modifying the bodily frame of some of the 

 members. Many persons are convinced, as it appears to 

 me with justice, that our aristocracy, including under this 

 term all wealthy families in which primogeniture has long 

 prevailed, from having chosen during many generations 

 from all classes the more beautiful women as their wives, 

 have become handsomer, according to the European 

 standard, than the middle classes; yet the middle classes 

 are placed under equally favorable conditions of life for 

 the perfect development of the body. Cook remarks that 

 the superiority in personal appearance ^^ which is observa- 

 ble in the erees or nobles in all the other islands (of the 

 Pacific) is found in the Sandwich Islands ;" but this 

 may be chiefly due to their better food and manner of 

 life. 



The old traveler Chardin, in describing the Persians, 

 says their '' blood is now highly refined by frequent inter- 

 mixtures with the Georgians and Circassians, two nations 

 which surpass all the world in personal beauty. There is 

 hardly a man of rank in Persia who is not born of a 



*" Schopenhauer and Darwinism," in " Jouruftlof Anthropology," 

 Jan., 1871, p. 323- 



