328 
SEXUAL SELECTION: MAN. 
Paet ip. 
during manhood ; they will, moreover, have been 
strengthened by use during this same period of life.. 
Consequently, in accordance witli the principle often 
alluded to, we might expect that they would at least 
tend to be transmitted chiefly to the male offspring 
at the corresponding period of manhood. 
Now, when two men are put into competition, or a 
man with a woman, w^ho possess every mental quality 
in the same perfection, with the exception that the 
one has higher energy, perseverance, and courage, 
this one will generally become more eminent, what- 
ever the object may be, and will gain the victory. 
He may be said to possess genius — for genius has been 
declared by a great authority to be patience ; and 
patience, in this sense, means unflinching, undaunted 
perseverance. But this view of genius is perhaps 
deficient ; for wdthout the higher powers of the imagi- 
nation and reason, no eminent success in many subjects 
can be gained. But these latter as well as the former 
faculties Avill have been developed in man, partly 
through sexual selection, — that is, through the contest of 
rival males, and partly through natural selection, — that 
is, from success in the general struggle for life ; and as 
in both cases the struggle will have been during 
maturity, the characters thus gained will have been 
transmitted more fully to the male than to the female 
offspring. Thus man has ultimately become superior to 
w^oman. It is, indeed, fortunate that the law of the 
equal transmission of characters to both sexes has com- 
monly prevailed throughout the whole class of mam- 
mals ; otherwise it is probable that man would have 
23 J. Stuart Mill remarks (‘ The Subjection of Women/ 1869, p. 122), 
‘‘ the things in which man most excels woman are those which require 
most plodding, and long hammering at single thoughts.” AVhat is. 
this but energy and perseverance ? 
