Chap. XX. 
MANXES OP ACTION. 
369 
a larger number of dogs or other animals, would have 
succeeded in rearing a greater average number of off- 
spring, than would the weaker, poorer and lower 
members of the same tribes. There can, also, be no 
doubt that such men would generally have been able 
to select the more attractive women. At present the 
chiefs of nearly every tribe throughout the world suc- 
ceed in obtaining more than one wife. Until recently, 
as I hear from Mr. Mantel], almost every girl in New 
Zealand, who was pretty, or promised to be pretty, 
was tapu to some chief. With the Kafirs, as Mr. C. 
Hamilton states , 15 “ the chiefs generally have the pick 
“ of the women for many miles round, and are most 
“ persevering in establishing or confirming their privi- 
lege.” We have seen that each race has its own 
style of beauty, and we know that it is natural to man 
to admire each characteristic point in his domestic ani- 
mals, dress, ornaments, and personal appearance, when 
carried a little beyond the common standard. If then 
the several foregoing propositions be admitted, and I 
cannot see that they are doubtful, it would be an in- 
explicable circumstance, if the selection of the more 
attractive women by the more powerful men of each 
tribe, who would rear on an average a greater number 
of children, did not after the lapse of many generations 
modify to a certain extent the character of the tribe. 
With our domestic animals, when a foreign breed 
is introduced into a new country, or when a native 
breed is long and carefully attended to, either for use or 
ornament, it is found after several generations to have 
undergone, whenever the means of comparison exist, a 
greater or less amount of change. This follows from 
Unconscious selection during a long series of generations 
15 ‘ Anthropological Review,’ Jan. 1870, p. xvi. 
2 B 
VOL. II. 
