384 
SEXUAL SELECTION : MAN. 
Part II. 
all that I have written in the later chapters on aiaii. 
We cannot positively say that this character, but not 
that, has been thus laodilied ; it has, however, been 
shewn that the races of man differ from each other and 
from their nearest allies amongst the lower animals, in 
certain characters which are of no service to them in 
their ordinary habits of life, and which it is extremely 
probable would have been modified through sexual selec- 
tion. We have seen that with the lowest savages the 
people of each tribe admire their own characteristic 
qualities, — the shape of the head and face, the square- 
ness of the cheek-bones, the prominence or depression 
of the nose, the colour of the skin, the length of the 
hair on the head, the absence of hair on the face and 
body, or the presence of a great beard, and so forth. 
Hence these and other such points could hardly fail to 
have been slowly and gradually exaggerated from the 
more powerful and able men in each tribe, who would 
succeed in rearing the largest number of offspring, hav- 
ing selected during many generations as their wives the 
most strongly characterised and therefore most attrac- 
tive women. For my own part I conclude that of all 
the causes which have led to the differences in external 
appearance between the races of man, and to a certain 
extent between man and the lower animals, sexual 
selection has been by far the most efficient. 
