438 Mental Factors in Evolution 
these psychological accompaniments are themselves the outcome of 
evolution. As a matter of observation, specially differentiated modes 
of behaviour, often very elaborate, frequently requiring highly de- 
veloped skill, and apparently highly charged with emotional tone, 
are the precursors of pairing. They are generally confined to the 
males, whose fierce combats during the period of sexual activity are 
part of the emotional manifestation. It is inconceivable that they 
have no biological meaning ; and it is difficult to conceive that they 
have any other biological end than to evoke in the generally more 
passive female the pairing impulse. They are based on instinctive 
foundations ingrained in the nervous constitution through natural 
(or may we not say sexual?) selection in virtue of their profound 
utility. They are called into play by a specialised presentation such 
as the sight or the scent of the female at, or a little in advance of, 
a critical period of the physiological rhythm. There is no necessity 
that the male should have any knowledge of the end to which his 
strenuous activity leads up. In presence of the female there is an 
elaborate application of all the energies of behaviour, just because 
ages of racial preparation have made him biologically and emotionally 
what he is—a functionally sexual male that must dance or sing or 
go through hereditary movements of display, when the appropriate 
stimulation comes. Of course after the first successful courtship his 
future behaviour will be in some degree modified by his previous 
experience. No doubt during his first courtship he is gaining the 
primary data of a peculiarly rich experience, instinctive and emo- 
tional. But the biological foundations of the behaviour of courtship 
are laid in the hereditary coordinations. It would seem that in 
some cases, not indeed in all, but perhaps especially in those cases 
in which secondary sexual behaviour is most highly evolved,—cor- 
relative with the ardour of the male is a certain amount of reluctance 
in the female. The pairing act on her part only takes place after 
prolonged stimulation, for affording which the behaviour of male 
courtship is the requisite presentation. The most vigorous, defiant 
and mettlesome male is preferred just because he alone affords a 
contributory stimulation adequate to evoke the pairing impulse with 
its attendant emotional tone. 
It is true that this places female preference or choice on a much 
lower psychological plane than Darwin in some passages seems to 
contemplate where, for example, he says that the female appreciates 
the display of the male and places to her credit a taste for the 
beautiful. But Darwin himself distinctly states! that “it is not 
probable that she consciously deliberates ; but she is most excited 
or attracted by the most beautiful, or melodious, or gallant males.” 
1 Descent of Man (2nd edit.), Vol. 11. pp. 136, 187; (Popular edit.), pp. 642, 643. 
