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 THE EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE AND OF THE FAMILY.

CHAPTER I.

THE BIOLOGICAL ORIGIN OF MARRIAGE.

I. The True Place of Man in the Animal Kingdom.—Man is a mammiferous, bimanous vertebrate—Biology the starting-point of sociology—The origin of love.

II. Reproduction.—Nutrition and reproduction—Scissiparity—Budding—Ovulation—Conjugation—Impregnation—Reproduction in the invertebrates—The entity called Nature—Organic specialisation and reproduction—A dithyramb by Haeckel.

III. Rut and Love.—Rut renders sociable—Rut is a short puberty—Its organic adornment—The frenzy of rut—Physiological reason of rut in mammals—Love and rut—Schopenhauer and the designs of Nature.

IV. Love of Animals.—Love and death—The law of coquetry—The law of battle—Jealousy and æsthetic considerations—Love amongst birds—Effects of sexual selection—The loves of the skylark—The males of the blue heron and their combats—Battles of male geese and male gallinaceæ—Courteous duels between males—Æsthetic seduction among certain birds—Æsthetic constructions—Musical seduction—Predominance of the female among certain birds—Greater sensuality of the male—Effect of sexual exaltation—A Cartesian paradox—Individual choice amongst animals—Individual fancies of females—General propositions.