600 THE DESCENT OP MAN. 



throws light on the remarkable fact that at the most ancient peri- 

 od, of which we have as yet any record, the races of man had 

 already come to differ nearly or quite as much as they do at the 

 present day. 



The views here advanced, on the part which sexual selection 

 has played In the history of man, want scientifio precision. He 

 who does not admit this agency in the case of the lower animals, 

 will disregard all that I have written in the later chapters on 

 man. We cannot positively say that this character, but not that, 

 has been thus modified; it has, however, been shown that the 

 races of man differ from each other and from their nearest allies, 

 in certain characters which are of no service to them in their daily 

 habits of life, and which it is extremely probable would have been 

 modified through sexual selection. We have seen that with the 

 lowest savages the people of each tribe admire their own charac- 

 teristic qualities, — the shape of the head and face, the square- 

 ness of the cheek-bones, the prominence or depression of the nose, 

 the color of the skin, the length of the hair on the head, the ab- 

 sence of hair on the face and body, or the presence of a great 

 beard, and so forth. Hence these and other such points could 

 hardly fail to be slowly and gradually exaggerated, from the more 

 powerful and able men in each tribe, who would succeed in rear- 

 ing the largest number of offspring, having selected during many 

 generations for their wives the most strongly characterized and 

 therefore most attractive women. For my own part I conclude 

 that of all the causes which have led to the differences in external 

 appearance between the races of man, and to a certain extent 

 between man and the lower animals, sexual selection hsis been 

 the most efficient. 



