438 Mental Factors in Evolution 



these psychological accompaniments are themselves the outcome of 

 evolution. As a matter of observation, specially differentiated modes 

 of behaviour, often very elaborate, frequently requiring highly de- 

 veloped skill, and apparently highly charged with emotional tone, 

 are the precursors of pairing. They are generally confined to the 

 males, whose fierce combats during the period of sexual activity are 

 part of the emotional manifestation. It is inconceivable that they 

 have no biological meaning ; and it is difficult to conceive that they 

 have any other biological end than to evoke in the generally more 

 passive female the pairing impulse. They are based on instinctive 

 foundations ingrained in the nervous constitution through natural 

 (or may we not say sexual?) selection in virtue of their profound 

 utility. They are called into play by a specialised presentation such 

 as the sight or the scent of the female at, or a little in advance of, 

 a critical period of the physiological rhythm. There is no necessity 

 that the male should have any knowledge of the end to which his 

 strenuous activity leads up. In presence of the female there is an 

 elaborate application of all the energies of behaviour, just because 

 ages of racial preparation have made him biologically and emotionally 

 what he is — a functionally sexual male that must dance or sing or 

 go through hereditary movements of display, when the appropriate 

 stimulation comes. Of course after the first successful courtship his 

 future behaviour will be in some degree modified by his previous 

 experience. No doubt during his first courtship he is gaining the 

 primary data of a peculiarly rich experience, instinctive and emo- 

 tional. But the biological foundations of the behaviour of courtship 

 are laid in the hereditary coordinations. It would seem that in 

 some cases, not indeed in all, but perhaps especially in those cases 

 in which secondary sexual behaviour is most highly evolved, — cor- 

 relative with the ardour of the male is a certain amount of reluctance 

 in the female. The pairing act on her part only takes place after 

 prolonged stimulation, for affording which the behaviour of male 

 courtship is the requisite presentation. The most vigorous, defiant 

 and mettlesome male is preferred just because he alone affords a 

 contributory stimulation adequate to evoke the pairing impulse with 

 its attendant emotional tone. 



It is true that this places female preference or choice on a much 

 lower psychological plane than Darwin in some passages seems to 

 contemplate where, for example, he says that the female appreciates 

 the display of the male and places to her credit a taste for the 

 beautiful. But Darwin himself distinctly states 1 that "it is not 

 probable that she consciously deliberates ; but she is most excited 

 or attracted by the most beautiful, or melodious, or gallant males." 



1 Descent of Man (2nd edit.), Vol. n. pp. 136, 137 ; (Popular edit.), pp. 642, 643. 



