CuAP. XXI. General Summary. 613 



but M'guments derived from the primeval beliefs of savages aro, 

 B8 we have just seen, of little or no avail. Few persons feel any 

 anxiety from the impossibility of determining at what precise 

 period in the development of the individual, from the first trace 

 of a minute germinal vesicle, man becomes an immortal being ; 

 and there is no greater cause for anxiety because the period 

 cannot possibly be determined in the gradually ascending organic 

 scale. ^ 



I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work 

 will be denounced by some as highly irreligious ; but he who 

 denounces them is bound to shew why it is more irreligious to 

 explain the origin of man as a distinct species by descent from 

 some lower form, through the laws of variation and natural 

 selection, than to explain the birth of the individual througli 

 the laws of ordinary reproduction. The birth both of the 

 species- and of the individual are equally parts of that grand 

 sequence of events, which our minds refuse to accept as the 

 result of blind chance. The understanding revolts at such a 

 conclusion, whether or not we are able to believe that every slight 

 variation of structure, — the union of each pair in marriage, — 

 the dissemination of each seed, — and other such events, have all 

 been ordained for some special purpose. 



Sexual selection has been treated at great length in this 

 work; for, as I have attempted to shew, it has played an 

 important part in the history of the organic world. I am 

 aware that much remains doubtful, but I have endeavoured 

 to give a fair view of the whole case. In the lower divisions 

 of the animal kingdom, sexual selection seems to have done 

 nothing : such animals are often affixed for life to the same 

 spot, or have the sexes combined in the same individual, or 

 what is still more important, their perceptive and intellectual 

 faculties are not sufficiently advanced to allow of the feehngs of 

 love and jealousy, or of the exertion of choice. When, however, 

 we come to the Arthropoda and Vertebrata, even to the lowest 

 classes in these two great Sub-Kingdoms, sexual selection has 

 effected much. 



In the several great classes of the animal kingdom, — in 

 mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, and even crustaceans, 

 —the differences between the sexes follow nearly the same 

 rules. The males are almost always the wooers; and they 

 alone are armed with special weapons for fighting with their 

 rivals. They are generally stronger and larger l!han the females, 



' The Rev. J. A. Picton gives a discuscion to this effect in his ' Se« 

 Thcciries and the Old Faith,' 1870. 



