Chap. XX. 
MANNER OF ACTION. 
367 
which would greatly interfere with, or completely stop, 
the action of sexual selection. On the other hand, the 
conditions of life to which savages are exposed, and 
some of their habits, are favourable to natural selection ; 
and this always comes into play together with sexual 
selection. Savages are known to suffer severely from 
recurrent famines ; they do not increase their food by 
artificial means ; they rarely refrain from marriage, 
and generally marry young. Consequently they must 
be subjected to occasional hard struggles for existence, 
and the favoured individuals will alone survive. 
Turning to primeval times when men had only doubt- 
fully attained the rank of manhood, they would probably 
have lived, as already stated, either as polygamists or 
temporarily as monogamists. Their intercourse, judging 
from analogy, Avould not then have been promiscuous. 
They would, no doubt, have defended their females to 
the best of their power from enemies of all kinds, and 
would probably have hunted for their subsistence, as 
well as for that of their offspring. The most power- 
ful and able males would have succeeded best in the 
struggle for life and in obtaining attractive females. At 
this early period the progenitors of man, from having 
only feeble powers of reason, would not have looked 
forward to distant contingencies. They would have 
been governed more by their instincts and even lesS: 
by their reason than are savages at the present day. 
They would not at that period have partially lost one 
of the strongest of all instincts, common to all the lower 
animals, namely tlie love of their young offspring ; and 
Burcliell says (‘ Travels in S. Africa, vol. ii. 1824, p. 58), that among 
the wild nations of Sontliern Africa, neither men nor women ever pass 
their lives in a state of celibacy. Azara (‘ Voyages dans I’Amerique 
Merid.’ tom. ii. 1899, p. 21) makes precisely the same remark in regard 
do the wild Indians of South America. 
