The Descent of Man 23 



attributed to ' sexual selection,' incipient man being supposed 

 to have chosen mates with less and less hairy bodies ; and 

 the possibility of such action is thought by Mr. Darwin to be 

 supported by the fact that certain monkeys have parts of the 

 body naked. Yet it is a fact that the higher apes have not 

 this nakedness, or have it in a much smaller degree. 



Secondly, as to the races of mankind, Mr. Darwin's 

 theory, indeed, requires the alternation of constancy and 

 caprice to account for the selection and the conservation of 

 marked varieties. In order that each race may possess and 

 preserve its own ideal standard of beauty, we require the 

 truth of the hypothesis that ' certain tastes may in the course 

 of time become inherited ' ; and yet Mr. Darwin candidly 

 admits (vol. ii. p. 353), ' I know of no evidence in favour of 

 this belief.' On the other hand, he says (p. 370), 'As soon as 

 tribes exposed to different conditions came to vary, each 

 isolated tribe would form for itself a slightly different 

 standard of beauty,' which ' would gradually and inevitably 

 be increased to a greater and greater degree.' But why 

 have not the numerous tribes of North American Indians 

 diverged from each other more conspicuously, inhabiting, as 

 they do, such different climates, and surrounded by such 

 diverse conditions ? 



Again, far from each race being bound in the trammels of 

 its own features, all cultivated Europeans, whether Celts, 

 Teutons, or Slavs, agree in admiring the Hellenic ideal as 

 the highest type of human beauty. 



We may now pass on to the peculiarities of man's bodily 

 frame, and the value and the signification of the resemblances 

 presented by it to the various structures which are found to 

 exist in lower members of the animal kingdom. 



Mr. Darwin treats us to a very interesting account, not 

 only of man's anatomy, but also of the habits, diseases, and 

 parasites (internal and external) of man, together with the 



