590 THE DESCENT OE MAN. 



fanticide, early betrothals, &c. The strongest and most vigorous 

 men, — those who could best defend and hunt for their families, 

 who were provided with the best weapons and possessed the 

 most property, such as a large number of dogs or other animals,— 

 would succeed in rearing a greater average number of offspring 

 than the weaker and poorer members of the same tribes. There 

 can, also, be no doubt that such men would generally be able to 

 select the more attractive women. At present the chiefr of nearly 

 every tribe throughout the world succeed in obtaining more than 

 one wife. I hear from Mr. Mantell, that until recently, almost 

 every girl in New Zealand, who was pretty, or promised to be 

 pretty, was tapu to some chief. With the Kafirs, as Mr. C. Hamil- 

 ton states," "the chiefs generally have the pick of the women for 

 "many miles round, and are most persevering in establishing or 

 "confirming their privilege." We have seen that each race has 

 its own style of beauty, and we know that it is natural to man to 

 admire each characteristic point in his domestic animals, dress, 

 ornaments, and personal appearance, when carried a little be- 

 yond the average. If then the several foregoing propositions be 

 admitted, and I cannot see that they are doubtful, it would be an 

 inexplicable circumstance, if the selection of the more attractive 

 women by the more powerful men of each tribe, who would rear on 

 an average a greater number of children, did not after the lapse 

 of many generations somewhat modify the character of the tribe. 

 When a foreign breed of our domestic animals is introduced 

 into a new country, or when a native breed is long and carefully 

 attended to, either for use or ornament, it is found after several 

 generations to have undergone a greater or less amount of change, 

 whenever the means of comparison exist. This follows from un- 

 conscious selection during a long series of generations — that is, 

 the preservation of the most approved individuals — without any 

 wish or expectation of such a result on the part of the breeder. 

 So again, if during many years two careful breeders rear animals 

 of the same family, and do not compare them together or with a 

 common standard, the animals are found to have become, to the 

 surprise of their owners, slightly different." Each breeder has 

 impressed, as Von Nathusius well expresses it, the character of 

 his own mind — his own taste and judgment — on his animals. 

 What reason, then, can be assigned why similar results should 

 not follow from the long-continued selection of the most admired 

 women by those men of each tribe, who were able to rear the 

 greatest number of children? This would be unconscious selec- 

 tion, for an effect would be produced, independently of any wish 



" 'Anthropological Review,' Jan. 1870, p. xvi. 



18 'The Variation o£ Animals and Plants under Domestication,' vol. ii. 

 pp. 210-217. 



