32 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



resemble domesticated animals, and so do the individuals 

 of the same race, when inhabiting a very wide area, like 

 that of America. We see the influence of diversified con- 

 ditions in the more civilized nations; for the members be- 

 longing to different grades of rank, and following different 

 occupations, present a greater range of character than do 

 the members of barbarous nations. But the uniformity of 

 savages has often been exaggerated, and in some cases can 

 hardly be said to exist.* It is, nevertheless, an error to 

 speak of man, even if we look only to the conditions to 

 which he has been exposed, as "far more domesticated "\ 

 than any other animal. Some savage races, such as the 

 Australians, are not exposed to more diversified conditions 

 than are many species which have a wide range. In an- 

 other and much more important respect, man differs widely 

 from any strictly domesticated animal; for his breeding has 

 never long been controlled, either by methodical or uncon- 

 scious selection. No race or body of men has been so com- 

 pletely subjugated by other men, as that certain individuals 

 should be preserved, and thus unconsciously selected, from 

 somehow excelling in utility to their masters. Nor have 

 certain male and female individuals been intentionally 

 picked out and matched, except in the well-known case of 

 the Prussian grenadiers; and in this case man obeyed, as 

 might have been expected, the law of methodical selection; 

 for it is asserted that many tall men were reared in the 

 villages inhabited by the grenadiers and their tall wives. 

 In Sparta, also,, a form of selection was followed, for it was 

 enacted that all children should be examined shortly after 

 birth; the well-formed and vigorous being preserved, the 

 others left to perish. J 



*Mr. Bates remarks (" The Naturalist on the Amazons," 1863, vol. 

 ii, p. 159), with respect to the Indians of the same South American 

 tribe, " No two of them were at all similar in the shape of the head ; 

 one man had an oval visage with fine features, and another was 

 quite Mongolian in breadth and prominence of cheek, spread of nos- 

 trils, and obliquity of eyes." 



f Blumenbach, " Treatises on Anthropolog.," Eug. translat., 1865, 

 p. 205. 



JMitford's "History of Greece," vol. i, p. 282. It appears also 

 from a passage in Xenophon's "Memorabilia," B. ii, 4 (to which my 

 attention has been called by the Rev. J. N. Hoare), that it was a well 

 recognized principle with the Greeks, that men ought to select their 

 wives with a view to the health and vigor of their children. The 



