THE DESCENT OR ORIGIN OF MAN 49 



erations. Domesticated animals vary more than tliose in a 

 state of nature ; and this is apparently due to the diversified 

 and changing nature of the conditions to which they have 

 been subjected. In this respect the different races of man 

 resemble domesticated animals, and so do the individuals of 

 the same race, when inhabiting a very wide area, like that 

 of America. We see the influence of diversified conditions 

 in the more civilized nations ; for the members belonging to 

 different grades of rank, and following different occupations, 

 present a greater range of character than do the members of 

 barbarous nations. But the uniformity of savages has often 

 been exaggerated, and in some cases can hardly be said to 

 exist." It is, nevertheless, an error to speak of man, even 

 if we look only to the conditions to which he has been ex- 

 posed, as "far more domesticated" " than any other animal. 

 Some savage races, such as the Australians, are not exposed 

 to more diversified conditions than are many species which 

 have a wide range. In another and much more important 

 respect, man differs widely from any strictly domesticated 

 animal; for his breeding has never long bee.n controlled, 

 either by methodical or unconscious selection. No race or 

 body of men has been so completely subjugated by other 

 men, as that certain individuals should be preserved, and 

 thus unconsciously selected, from somehow excelling in 

 utility to their masters. Nor have certain male and female 

 individuals been intentionally picked out and matched, ex- 

 cept in the well-known case of the Prussian grenadiers; and 

 in this case man obeyed, as might have been expected, the 

 law of methodical selection; for it is asserted tbat many tall 

 men were reared in the villages inhabited by the grenadiers 

 and their tall wives. In Sparta, also, a form of selection 

 was followed, for it was enacted that all children should be 



" Mr. Bates remarks ("The Natiiralist on the Amazons," 1863, vol. ii. p. 

 159), witii respect to the Indians of the same South American tribe, "no two 

 of them were at all similar in the shape of the head; one man had an oval vis- 

 age with fine features, and another was quite Mongolian in breadth and promi- 

 nence of cheek, spread of nostrils, and obliquity of eyes." 



" Blumenbach, "Treatises on Anthropolog.," Bng. translat., 1865,, p. 205. 

 Descent — Vol. I. — 3 



