42 ORGANIC EVOLUTION 



virtue of sexual selection, towards extinction. But 

 in the case of the lower animals — and therefore 

 throughout the greater part of the history of this 

 form of sexual selection — it would appear that the 

 taste of the female has been more important than 

 that of the male. Hence the results of sexual 

 selection are more conspicuous in the male than in 

 the female. Characters produced by sexual selection 

 are called " secondary sexual characters," and it is 

 chiefly to the male that we look for examples of 

 them. Amongst such are, in all probability, the 

 beard of man (though, as it happens in our par- 

 ticular generation and society, this happens to be 

 rather a sexual disadvantage, in the majority of 

 cases, than the reverse) ; the mane of the lion ; the 

 voice of the cock and the lark ; the magnificent 

 plumage and colouring of the peacock ; and so 

 forth — examples being innumerable. 



But this is only one mode of sexual selection — 

 perhaps the least important, Consider the case of 

 half-a-dozen males of any species, each of whom 

 desires sole possession of the one available female. 

 In the ensuing battle victory will commonly go to 

 the superior strength, intelligence or cunning, neet- 

 ness, perseverance. If these characters are trans- 

 missible — a fact of which there is no question — the 

 next generation of this species will tend to possess 

 them in greater degree than the last. There is 

 neither space nor occasion to elaborate this argument 

 here ; 1 but it is still necessary — fallacies having 

 many more lives than the proverbial cat — to consider 



1 Mr. Murray has lately issued a complete edition of the " Descent 

 of Man " for half-a-crown. 



