INTRODUCTION 19 



sexual selection is a factor in race progress ; if not, though 

 it may occur in nature, it is inoperative as a means of 

 evolutionary development. The whole question, in itself 

 a difficult one, is further complicated by the fact that 

 the males which are possessed of the most exuberant 

 vitality, and are therefore by hypothesis rendered the 

 most acceptable through emotional suggestion, are likely 

 to compete with other males of less exuberant vitality 

 by direct combat. Such competition, by which the 

 weakest are excluded from mating through no choice on 

 the part of the female, falls under the head of natural 

 selection, and not of sexual selection, if by that term we 

 understand preferential mating. 



" This serves to bring out the difference . . . between 

 natural selection through elimination and conscious 

 selection through choice. . . . Sexual selection by 

 preferential mating begins by selecting the most suc- 

 cessful in stimulating the pairing instinct. . . . The 

 process is determined by conscious choice. It is in and 

 through such choice that consciousness has been a factor 

 in evolution." 



Herein Lloyd Morgan, like Darwin, recognizes the 

 existence of a dual machinery in determining survival, 

 where this depends on the co-operation of two individuals 

 leading separate existences — Natural, and Sexual, Selec- 

 tion — sometimes the one and sometimes the other 

 prevailing. In the former, the females are seized by 

 force; in the latter, won by displays. ^ 



But is this really so ? In these pages it is contended 

 that a sharp line must be drawn between all those attributes 

 and characters which are necessary to achieve individual 

 survival, the survival of the EgOy and all those which, 

 on the other hand, are necessary to achieve reproduction 



