THE PEOPLE OF THE CONGO. 285 
during that great struggle, not only for existence, but at 
the same time for dominion, from which some one of the 
many great apes emerged as man, there must have been 
little desire or leisure to originate physical adornments by 
sexual selection. All our energies were at that period 
directed to the bare necessities of life, to the procuring of 
food, shelter from enemies, or withstanding the adverse 
effects of altered climates by artificial means. As, how- 
ever, these pursuits had the effect of developing and 
vastly strengthening man’s faculties of thought and 
reflection, so when he had attained such a position of 
predominance that his existence as a species was assured, 
the development of physical charms had less attraction 
for him than it possesses for the lower mammalia. 
Sexual selection henceforth was applied more prominently 
to mind than to body, and the most cunning men secured 
the greatest number of wives. At the same time, though 
it has lost its old predominance, bodily beauty still 
exercises, and has exercised greatly in the past, an 
influence on the minor physical characteristics of man- 
kind. The réle of arbiter in such matters somewhat 
changed hands. It was the men that began to choose the 
women, and not the women, always, who had the power 
of selecting their husbands. The result of this has been - 
that, in one or more of the highest varieties of man, an 
attempt on the part of the weaker sex has been made to 
develop attractive facial colouring, and a greatly exag- 
gerated occipital mane. But men or women alike, in 
their efforts to secure admiration and to satisfy their 
personal vanity, have had impatient recourse to artificial 
means of making themselves attractive, awe-inspiring, 
or ridiculous. Clothing was first adopted as a means of 
decoration rather than from motives of decency. Clothing 
also, under climatic influences, derived a greater develop- 
ment than would have arisen from mere motives of 
decency alone; and, further, the love of adornment, with 
the desire of pioducing an attractive or imposing appear- 
ance superadded, has induced man at various times to 
make himself a very jackdaw arrayed.in the borrowed 
