SEXUAL SELECTION IN RELATION TO MAN 783 



ers as yet undiscovered, man has been raised to his present 

 state. But since he attained to the rank of manhood, he has 

 I diverged into distinct races, or, as they may be more fitly 

 I called, sub-species. Some of these, such as the Negro and 

 I jEuropean, are so distinct that, if specimens had been brought 

 I to a naturalist without any further information, they would 

 undoubtedly have been considered by him as good and true 

 ^ species. Nevertheless all the races agree in so many unim- 

 portant details of structure and in so many mental peculiar- 

 ities, that these can be accounted for only by inheritance 

 j) from a common progenitor; and a progenitor thus character- 

 ^ ized would probably deserve to rank as man. 



It must not be supposed that the divergence of each race 

 from the other races, and of all from a common stock, can 

 be traced back to any one pair of progenitors. On the con- 

 trary, at every stage in the process of modification, all the 

 individuals which were in any way better fitted for their 

 conditions of life, though in different degrees, would have 

 survived in greater numbers than the less well fitted. The 

 process would have been like that followed by man, when 

 he does not intentionally select particular individuals, but 

 breeds from all the superior individuals, and neglects the 

 inferior. He thus slowly but surely modifies his stock, and 

 unconsciously forms a new strain. So with respect to modi- 

 fications acquired independently of selection, and due to 

 variations arising from the nature of the organism and the 

 action of the surrounding conditions, or from changed habits 

 of life, no single pair will have been modified much more 

 than the other pairs inhabiting the same country, for all 

 will have been continually blended through free inter- 

 crossing. 



By considering the embryological structure of man — the 

 homologies which he presents with the lower animals — the 

 rudiments which he retaihs — and the reversions to which 

 he is liable, we can partly recall in imagination the former 

 condition of our early progenitors; and can approximately 

 place them in their proper place in the zoological series. 



