"MANKIND IN THE MAKING" 29 



It has been suggested that the low, beetling brows, 

 protruding mouth, and flat, broad nose which charac- 

 terized the earhest human peoples, were slowly elimin- 

 ated by the aesthetic taste displayed by the females in 

 their choice of mates. Now in the first place, it is highly 

 improbable that they had any choice allowed them, and 

 if they had, these arc just the characters which were 

 most marked in the males and might, or probably would, 

 in consequence, have been deemed " manly " and desirable, 

 for it is hardly to be supposed that such people would be 

 capable of conceiving ideas of a possible refinement of 

 their personal appearance if they could but add to the 

 height of their foreheads and reduce the size of their 

 faces. These graces settled down on them as the brain 

 enlarged and habits changed. But the process of trans- 

 formation must have been infinitely slow, and quite 

 imperceptible from one generation to another. 



The absence of secondary sexual characters in man, 

 such as the brightly coloured areas which are so con- 

 spicuous a feature of many of the lower apes, is to be 

 explained by his fundamentally different mode of life. 

 Such vivid hues obtain only in species which live in 

 troops, and they serve as aphrodisiacs, ensuring mating 

 to every female forming a part thereof, which would be 

 by no means certain were there no external signs of her 

 condition. Primitive man, like the higher apes, was 

 instinctively monogamous, and of necessity solitary, till 

 he had acquired a tolerable measure of self-control and 

 neighbourliness. When lust possessed him, he was 

 obliged, in making his maiden venture to scour the country 

 in the search for the object of his desire. This found, 

 and won, probably only after desperate conflict with the 

 head of the family, the nuptial ceremonies would be short. 



