Chap. XIX.] LAW OF BATTLE. 309 



casions, from their childhood, trying their strength and 

 skill in wrestling." With the Guanas of South America, 

 Azara states that the men rarely marry till twenty or more 

 years old, as before that age they cannot conquer their ri- 

 vals. 



Other similar facts could be given ; but even if we had 

 no evidence on this head, we might feel almost sure, from 

 the analogy of the higher Quadrumana,^^ that the law of 

 battle had prevailed with man during the early stages of 

 his development. The occasional appearance at the pres- 

 ent day of canine teeth which project above the others, 

 with traces of a diastema or open space for the reception 

 of the opposite canines, is in all probability a case of re- 

 version to a former state, when the progenitors of man 

 were provided with these weapons, like so many existing 

 male Quadrumana. It was remarked in a former chapter 

 that as man gradually became erect, and continually used 

 his hands and arms for fighting with sticks and stones, as 

 well as for the other purposes of life, he would have used 

 his jaws and teeth less and less. The jaws, together with 

 their muscles, would then have become reduced through 

 disuse, as would the teeth, through the not well understood 

 principles of correlation and the economy of growth ; for 

 we everywhere see that parts which are no longer of ser- 

 vice are reduced in size. By such steps the original in- 

 equality between the jaws and teeth in the two sexes of 

 mankind would ultimately have been quite obliterated. The 

 case is almost parallel with that of many male Ruminants, 

 in which the canine teeth have been reduced to mere rudi- 

 ments, or have disappeared, apparently in consequence of 

 the development of horns. As the prodigious difierence 

 between the skulls of the two sexes in the Gorilla and 



^^ On the fighting of the male gorilla, see Dr. Savage, in ' Boston 

 Journal of Nat. His.' vol. v. 184*7, p. 423. On Presbyiis entellus^ see 

 the ' Indian Field,' 1869, p. 146. 



