Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/310

296 to the male offspring at the corresponding period of manhood.... These faculties will have been developed in man partly through sexual selection, that is, through the contests of rival males, and partly through natural selection, that is, from success in the general struggle for life....

"Thus," continues Darwin, "man has ultimately become superior to woman." We will say, rather, thus have men and women come to differ mentally as well as physically. We will take further testimony, and inquire what sexual selection has been accomplishing for women during these long periods of man's physical and mental development, before accepting the unmodified dictum of superiority.

The authority so frequently quoted tells us that "the equal transmission of characters to both sexes is the commonest form of inheritance," and that "this form has commonly prevailed throughout the whole class of mammals." Hence the advantages primarily gained by man have been bestowed upon his descendants of both sexes, though as has been shown, in a somewhat less degree upon the female. Let us now glance at the converse of these vivid pictures of the advantages accruing to man through habits and conditions arising from primary sexual characters, and endeavor to learn whether the habits and conditions necessarily attaching to the female have been the source of any gain either to herself or to the race as a whole.

The less degree of hardship and exposure to Which she has been subjected have doubtless tended to develop in her the physical beauty in which she is generally acknowledged to be man's superior; while the fact that women have long been selected and prized for their beauty will have tended, on the principle of sexual selection, to increase the differences originally acquired through natural selection.

The "sweet low voice" which has so long been accounted "an excellent thing in woman," has undoubtedly been gained in a similar manner. In the pursuit of her more quiet avocations there would be less likelihood of the development of large and powerful vocal organs, as it is during the excitements of battle and the chase that the fiercest yells and wildest shouts are produced. The perception of musical cadences, and a sensitiveness to the influence of rhythm, manifested even by many of the lower animals, naturally associating themselves with the rhythm of motion, would tend to early development, on the part of the female, in the care and nursing of her young; while sexual selection has probably played a still more important part in the origin of music.

"Although," says Darwin, "the sounds emitted by animals of all kinds serve many purposes, a strong case can be made out that the vocal organs were primarily used and perfected in relation to the propagation of the species."

Many of the lower animals are mute except during the breeding-season, and the calls, melodious or frightful, of most animals have