SEXUAL SELECTION IN RELATION TO MAN 781 



clear belief of this kind; but arguments derived from tin 

 primeval beliefs of savages are, as we have just seen, o 

 little or no avail. Few persons feel any anxiety from thi 

 impossibility of determining at what precise period in thi 

 development of the individual, from the first trace of i 

 minute germinal vesicle, man bec<vmes an immortal being 

 and there is no greater cause for anxiety because the perioc 

 cannot possibly be determined in the gradually ascendin| 

 organic scale.' 



I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this worJ 

 will be denounced by some as highly irreligious; but hi 

 vrho denounces them is bound to show why it is mor( 

 irreligious to explain the origin of man as a distinct spe 

 cies by descent from some lower form, through the laws o 

 variation and natural selection, than to explain the birtl 

 of the individual through the laws of ordinary reproduc 

 tion. The birth both of the species and of the indi vidua 

 are equally parts of that grand sequence of events whicl 

 our minds refuse to accept as the result of blind chance 

 The understanding revolts at such a «oaclusion, whethe 

 or not we are able to believe that every slight variatioi 

 of structure — the union of each pair in marriage — the dis 

 semination of each seed — and other such events, have al 

 been ordained for some special purpose. 



Sexual selection has been treated at great length in this 

 work; for, as I have attempted to show, it has played ai 

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

 aware that much remains doubtful, but I have endeavorec 

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

 ions of the animal kingdom, sexual selection seems to hav( 

 done nothing: such animals are often afSxed for life to th( 

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

 vidnal, or, what is still more important, their perceptiv( 

 and intellectual faculties are not sufficiently advanced U 



> The Bev. J. A. Fioton gives a discussion to this effect in his "Kew Iheo 

 ttee and th« Old fblth," 1870. 



Descent— Vol. IL— 16 



