CHAP. X.] SEXUAL SELECTION. 325 



of observation have been ample as to negroes, &quot; is convinced 

 that their ideas of beauty are on the whole the same as 

 ours.&quot; Whether or not these observers are justified in the 

 strength of their remarks, it cannot be doubted that their 

 evidence demonstrates that the admiration of low types 

 of men for their own race is certainly far from constant and 

 universal. 



Secondly, with regard to man s power of song, Mr. Darwin s 

 views are thus expressed : All the facts as to the deep and 

 mysterious emotions and feelings excited by music 



&quot;become to a certain extent intelligible, if we may assume that 

 musical tones and rhythm were used by the half-human progenitors of 

 man, during the season of courtship, when animals of all kinds are 

 excited by the strongest passions. In this case, from the deeply-laid 

 principle of inherited associations, musical tones would be likely to 

 excite in us, in a vague and indefinite manner, the strong emotions of 

 a long-past age. Bearing in mind that the males of some quadru- 

 manous animals have their vocal organs much more developed than in 

 the females, and that one anthropomorphous species pours forth a 

 whole octave of musical notes and may be said to sing, the suspicion 

 does not appear improbable that the progenitors of man, either the 

 males or females, or both sexes, before they had acquired the power of 

 expressing their mutual love in articulate language, endeavoured to 

 charm each other with musical notes and rhythm. So little is known 

 about the use of the voice by the Quadrumana during the season of 

 love, that we have hardly any means of judging whether the habit of 

 singing was first acquired by the male or female progenitors of man 

 kind. Women are generally thought to possess sweeter voices than 

 men, and, as far as this serves as any guide, we may infer that they 

 first acquired musical powers in order to attract the other sex. But if 

 so, this must have occurred long ago, before the progenitors of man 

 had become sufficiently human to treat and value their women merely 

 as useful slaves. The impassioned orator, bard, or musician, when 

 with his varied tones and cadences he excites the strongest emotions in 

 his hearers, little suspects that he uses the same means by which, at 

 an extremely remote period, his half-human ancestors aroused each 

 other s ardent passions, during their mutual courtship and rivalry.&quot; 

 vol. ii. pp. 336, 337. 



This seems to be one of the most purely gratuitous of 

 the many degrading suppositions so unscrupulously emitted 

 by Mr. Darwin. There is not the slightest evidence that 

 the lowest savages sing to their loves; and Mr. Wallace 



