2 2 The Descent of Mem 



males, we must bear in mind that we can judge of choice being 

 exerted, only by placing ourselves in imagination in the same posi- 

 tion. If an inhabitant of another planet were to behold a number of 

 young rustics at a fair, courting and quarrelling over a pretty girl, 

 like birds at one of their places of assemblage, he would be able to 

 infer that she had the power of choice only by observing the eager- 

 ness of the wooers to please her and to display their finery.' — Vol ii. 

 p. 122. 



Now here it must be observed that, as is often the case, 

 Mr. Darwin assumes the very point in dispute, unless he 

 means by ' power of choice ' mere freedom of physical power. 

 If he means an internal, mental faculty of choice, then the 

 observer could attribute such power to the girl only if he had 

 reason to attribute to the rustics an intellectual and moral 

 nature similar in kind to that which he possessed himself. 

 Such a similarity of nature Mr. Darwin, of course, does 

 attribute to rational beings and to brutes ; but those who do 

 not agree with him in this, would require other tests than 

 the presence of ornaments and the performance of antics 

 and gestures unaccompanied by any evidence of the faculty 

 of articulate speech. 



Such, then, is the nature of the evidence on w^hich sexual 

 selection is supposed to rest. To us the action of sexual 

 selection scarcely seems more than a possibility, the evidence 

 rarely raising it to probability. It cannot be a 'sufficient 

 cause ' to account for the phenomena which it is intended to 

 explain, nor can it even claim to be taken as a vera causa at 

 all. Yet Mr Darwin again and again speaks as if its reality 

 and cogency were indisputable. 



As to the alleged action of natural selection on our own 

 species we may mention two points. 



First, as to the absence of hair. This is a character 

 which Mr. Darwin admits cannot be accounted for by ' natural 

 selection,' because manifestly not beneficial; it is therefore 



