MAN— MODE OF SEXUAL SELECTION. 589 



what now obtains amongst savages. Judging from the analogy 

 of the lower animals he would then either live with a single 

 female, or be a polygamlst. The most powerful and able males 

 would succeed best in obtaining attractive females. They would 

 also succeed best In the general struggle for life, and in defend- 

 ing their females, as well as their offspring, from enemies of all 

 kinds. At this early period the ancestors of man would not be 

 sufficiently advanced in intellect to look forward to distant con- 

 tingencies; they would not foresee that the rearing of all their 

 children, especially their female children, would make the struggle 

 for life severer for the tribe. They would be governed more by 

 their instincts and less by their reason, than are savages at the 

 present day. They would not at that period have partially lost 

 one of the strongest of all instincts, common to all the lower 

 animals, namely the love of their young offspring; and conse- 

 quently they would not have practiced female Infanticide. Wom- 

 en would not have been thus rendered scarce, and polyandry 

 would not have been practiced; for hardly any other cause, ex- 

 cept the scarcity of women seems sufficient to break down the 

 natural and widely prevalent feeling of jealousy, and the desire of 

 each male to possess a female for himself. Polyandry would be a 

 natural stepping-stone to communal marriages or almost promis- 

 cuous intercourse; though the best authorities believe that this 

 latter habit preceded polyandry. During primordial times there 

 would be no early betrothals, for this Implies foresight. Nor 

 would women be valued merely as useful slaves or beasts of bur- 

 then. Both sexes, if the females as well as the males were per- 

 mitted to exert any choice, would choose their partners not for 

 mental charms, or property, or social position, but almost solely 

 from external appearance. All the adults would marry or pair, 

 and all the offspring, as far as that was possible, would be reared; 

 so that the struggle for existence would be periodically exces- 

 sively severe. Thus during these times all the conditions for sex- 

 ual selection would have been more favorable than at a later 

 period, when man had advanced in his Intellectual powers but 

 had retrograded in his instincts. Therefore, whatever influence 

 sexual selection may have had in producing the differences be- 

 tween the races of man, and between man and the higher Quad- 

 rumana, this influence would have been more powerful at a re- 

 mote period than at the present day, though probably not yet 

 wholly lost. 



The Manner of AcfAon of Sexual Selection with Mankind. — With 

 primeval men under the favorable conditions just stated, and 

 with those savages who at the present time enter into any mar- 

 riage tie, sexual selection has probably acted in the following 

 manner, subject to greater or less interference from female in- 



