MAN-SEXUAL, SELECTION. 581 



almost free choice, which is not the case with barbarous races, 

 yet their choice is largely influenced by the social position and 

 wealth of the men; and the success of the latter in life depends 

 much on their intellectual powers and energy, or on the fruits of 

 these same powers in their forefathers. No excuse is needed for 

 treating this subject in some detail; for, as the German philoso- 

 pher Schopenhauer remarks, "the final aim of all love intrigues, 

 "be they comic or tragic, is really of more importance than all 

 "other ends in human life. What it all turns upon is nothing less 

 "than the composition of the next generation. ... It is not the 

 "weal or woe of any one Individual, but that of the human race to 

 "come, which is here at stake.'" 



There is, however, reason to believe that in certain civilized 

 and semi-civilized nations sexual selection has effected som3- 

 thing in modifying the bodily frame of some of the members. 

 Many persons are convinced, as it appears to me with justice, 

 that our aristocracy, including under this term all wealthy fami- 

 lies in. which primogeniture has long prevailed, from having 

 chosen during many generations from all classes the more beau- 

 tiful women as their wives, have become handsomer, according 

 to the European standard, than the middle classes; yet the 

 middle classes are placed under equally favorable conditions of 

 life for the perfect development of the body. Cook remarks that 

 the superiority in personal appearance "which is observable in 

 "the erees or nobles in all the other islands (of the Pacific) is 

 "found 'in the Sandwich islands;" but this may be chiefly due 

 to their better food and manner of life. 



The old traveler Chardin, in describing the Persians, says their 

 "blood is now highly refined by frequent intermixtures with the 

 "Georgians and Circassians, two nations which surpass all the 

 "world in personal beauty. There is hardly a man of rank in 

 "Persia who is not born of a Georgian or Circassian mother." He 

 adds that they inherit their beauty, "not from their ancestors, 

 "for without the above mixture, the men of rank in Persia, 

 "who are descendants of the Tartars, would be extremely ugly."^ 

 Here is a more curious case; the priestesses who attended the 

 temple of Venus Erycina at San-Giuliano in Sicily, were selected 

 for their beauty out of the whole of Greece; they were not vestal 

 virgins, and Quatrefages," who states the foregoing fact, says that 

 the women of San-Giuliano are now famous as the most beautiful 



1 'Schopenhauer and Darwinism,' in 'Journal of Anthropology,' Jan. 

 1871, p. 323. 



2 These quotations are taken from Lawrence ('Lectures on Physiolo- 

 gy,' &c. 1822, p. 393), who attributes the beauty of the upper classes in 

 England to the men having long selected the more beautiful women. 



' 'Anthropologie,' 'Revue des Cours Scientiflques,' Oct. 1868, p. 721. 



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