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SEXUAL selection: man. 
Part II- 
dining manhood ; they will, moreover, have been 
strengthened by use during this same period of life. 
Consequently, in accordance with 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, who possess every mental quality 
m the same perfection, with the exception that the 
one has higher energy, perseverance, and courage, 
tins one will generally become more eminent, what- 
ever the object may he, and will gain the victory . 23 
He may be said to possess genius— for genius has been 
declared by a great authority to he patience; and 
patience, in this sense, means unflinching, undaunted 
pci. severance. But this view of genius is perhaps 
deficient: for without the higher powers of the imagi- 
nation and reason, no eminent success in many subjects 
c-au be gained. These latter as well as the former 
inanities will have been developed in man, partly 
through sexual selection,— that is, through the contest of 
rival males, and partly through natural selection,— that 
is, ro m success in the general struggle for life ; and as 
m 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. It accords with the view that some of our 
mental faculties have been modified or strengthened 
through sexual selection, that, firstly, they undergo, as 
is generally admitted, a considerable change at puberty, 
and, secondly, that eunuchs remain throughout life infe- 
« St,uart Ml . 1 ! “ lrs Tlle Subjection of Women,’ 1SG9, p. 122), 
the m whloh “ost excels woman are those which require 
‘ most plodding, and long hammering at single thoughts.” What is 
this but energy and perseverance ? 
