Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/309

Rh follow from the more eager males leaving a larger number of offspring than the less eager."

I have quoted thus at length upon this point, in accordance with the principle already laid down, that the lower is a type of the higher.

Following Darwin's argument—"the greater eagerness of the male has thus indirectly led to the more frequent development of secondary sexual characters in the male than in the female"—secondary sexual characters being those not directly concerned in reproduction. Among these are the greater size, strength, courage, and pugnacity of the male, which most naturalists admit to have been acquired or modified by sexual selection—not depending on any superiority in the general struggle for life, but on certain individuals of one sex, generally the male, having been successful in conquering other males, and thus having left a larger number of offspring to inherit their superiority.

In the human species, the differences between the sexes are marked. The greater size and strength of man are apparent. His broader shoulders, more powerful muscles, greater physical courage and pugnacity, may be plainly claimed, by Darwin and his adherents, as man's inheritance from a long line of ancestry, of which the vanishing-point is in the remote past, among the lowest forms of life.

Whether or not this relationship be accepted, the same principles which have prevailed among lower animals must have been operative in the progress and development of the human race.

During the long ages when man was in a condition of barbarism, it must have been the strongest and boldest hunters and warriors who would succeed best in the struggle for existence, thus improving the race through the operation of natural selection, and the survival of the fittest; while the stronger passions accompanying these traits would lead to their success in securing the wives of their choice.

They would necessarily, by means of the same advantages, leave a more numerous progeny than their less successful rivals. It is here that the laws of sexual selection and heredity come in to maintain and increase the differences between the sexes. Who can doubt that a difference in mental characteristics would result from such causes? The greater necessity for exertion on the part of men would inevitably result in the development of more robust intellects. "Mere bodily size and strength would do little for victory unless associated with courage, perseverance, and determined energy.

"To avoid enemies or to attack them successfully, to capture wild animals, and to invent and fashion weapons, require the aid of the higher mental faculties, namely: observation, reason, invention, or imagination. These various faculties will thus have been continually put to the test and selected during 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