Darwin's Theory of Sexual Selection 211 
females, which appears in some races to be practised to an 
astonishing degree ; third, early betrothals; fourth, the hold- 
ing of women as slaves. 
When we recall that selection to be effective can only 
be carried out under very exacting conditions, we cannot 
but be appalled at the demands made here on our credulity. 
The choice of the women has produced the beard of man, 
the choice of man the absence of a beard in women; the 
competition of the males with each other is leading at the 
same time to the development of at least half a dozen 
qualities that are supposed to be male specialities, and 
while all this is going on the results are being checked 
sometimes by one means, sometimes by another. Moreover, 
even this is not all that we are asked to accept, for there 
are several other qualities of the male that are put down as 
secondary sexual characters. For example, let us examine 
what Darwin has to say in regard to the development of 
the voice, and of singing in man. 
In man the vocal cords are about a third longer than in 
woman and his voice deeper. Emasculation arrests the de- 
velopment of the vocal apparatus, and the voice remains like 
that of a woman., This difference between the sexes, Dar- 
win thinks, is due probably to long-continued use by the 
male “under the excitement of love, rage, and jealousy.” 
In other words, an appeal is again made to the Lamarckian 
theory, and in this case to explain the origin of an organ that 
conforms to all the requirements of the secondary sexual 
characters. 
“The capacity and love for singing, or music, though not a 
sexual character in man,” in the sense of being confined to 
one sex, yet is supposed to have arisen through sexual selec- 
tion in the following way: “Human song is generally 
admitted to be the basis or origin of instrumental music. 
As neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of producing 
musical notes are faculties of the least use to man in refer- 
