66 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART n 



deserves the fair " that is half the new doctrine. For 

 sexual selection is believed to exist in two forms ; first, 

 when the males fight with each other for the privilege of 

 access to the females, as in the case of lions or stags : 

 secondly, when the males vie with each other in aesthetic 

 attractiveness, as Darwin supposed to be the case with 

 birds, and as a larger number of observers believe to be 

 demonstrated in the case of certain insects. The assump- 

 tion appears to be that the unsuccessful males remain 

 almost or altogether sterile by force of circumstances ; 

 accordingly, a criticism passed by Wallace upon Darwin's 

 theory of a sexual selection in the case of birds is to the 

 effect that, apparently, even the least beautiful of male 

 birds finds a mate sooner or later during the pairing 

 season ; that the inferior forms leave offspring as well as 

 the superior forms ; that accordingly no selection between 

 different forms is due to the imperfect rivalries of court- 

 ship. It might be possible, surely, to meet even this 

 difficulty. Presumably, the successful males, whether 

 fighters or beauties, will pair off with the most desirable 

 females ; there will be an intensified divergence of 

 offspring in the next generation, with consequent 

 emphasis upon variation, and hastening of the final 

 victory of the strong over the weak. On the other 

 hand it may be held that sexual selection in this sense 

 is only a remedy for an obvious weakness in the 

 process of natural selection, the danger that advantages 

 will be lost by crossing. But if, as is usually thought, 

 sexual competition implies the celibacy or nearly so 

 of the unsuccessful candidates ; then we have before 

 us a direct and psychical process of selection, not an 

 indirect and natural process ; a short and straight 

 process therefore, not a long and circuitous one. Of 

 course, one is not guilty of the absurdity of saying, 



