72 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART n 



might be possible, surely, to meet even this difficulty. 

 Presumably, the successful males, whether fighters 

 or beauties, will pair off with the most desirable 

 females; there will be an intensified divergence of 

 offspring in the next generation, with consequent 

 emphasis upon variation, and hastening of the final 

 victory of the strong over the weak. On the other 

 hand it may be held that sexual selection in this 

 sense is only a remedy for an obvious weakness in 

 the process of natural selection, the danger that 

 advantages will be lost by crossing. But if, as is 

 usually thought, sexual competition implies the celi- 

 bacy or nearly so of the unsuccessful candidates ; 

 then we have before us a direct and psychical pro- 

 cess of selection, not an indirect and natural process ; 

 a short and straight process therefore, not a long and 

 circuitous one. Of course, one is not guilty of the 

 absurdity of saying that the females are conscious of 

 a preference for the best male specimens qua best, or 

 are urged by an enthusiasm for the ideal ! We only 

 affirm that, in virtue of their animal minds, they yield 

 themselves to the stronger or to the fairer. Yet again 

 a question may be raised, whether the evolution of 

 beauty, supposed to enter into the second form of 

 sexual selection, is necessarily the same thing as an 

 evolution in strength and efficiency. It may well be 

 so. Beauty may well be correlated to those qualities 

 of health and vigour which make a type intrinsically 

 fitted to survive. As Mr. Grant Allen once remarked 

 in a rare moment of inspiration or common sense, the 

 saying that beauty is only skin-deep is itself but a 

 piece of skin-deep and superficial wisdom. Yet, even 

 if beauty does not imply superior health and vigour, 



