The Evolution of Morality. 219 



killing of female infants may have led to polyan 

 dry ; but more natural explanations may easily 

 be found. Sir Henry Maine tells us of the origin 

 of a modern case of polyandry : &quot; It is known to 

 have arisen in the native Indian army &quot; (&quot; Early 

 Law and Custom,&quot; p. 121). And if we suppose 

 in primitive times, similarly, a number of men 

 torn away from their original seats (in which the 

 balance between the sexes may have been even) 

 with only a few women among them, we have, 

 judging from the analogy of the Indian army, 

 all the conditions required for the emergence 

 of polyandry. Now, as Sir Henry Maine has 

 pointed out (Op. dt., p. 212), our earliest glimpses 

 of a great part of the human race reveal it in a 

 state of movement. Fighting, or wandering for 

 food, it is not unreasonable to suppose that in 

 many cases they settled in new seats with only a 

 comparatively small number of women ; and there 

 is evidence that some of the islands of the Pacific 

 were settled by boat-loads of men with only a few 

 of the other sex. Polyandry could thus be ex 

 plained without denying to primitive man those 

 instincts of power and jealousy which biologists 

 and psychologists alike attribute to him. But, of 

 course, it could make no pretence to being an in 

 variable stage for the whole human race in the 



