The answer may seem surprising to some, but it is none the less true, that "Natural Selection" is simply nothing. It is an apparently positive name for a really negative effect, and is therefore an eminently misleading term. By "Natural Selection" is meant the result of all the destructive agencies of nature, destructive to individuals and to races by destroying their lives or their powers of propagation. Evidently the cause of the distinction of species (supposing such distinction to be brought about in natural generation) must be that which causes variation, and variation in one determinate direction in at least several individuals simultaneously. At the same time it is freely conceded that the destructive agencies of nature do succeed in preventing the perpetuation of monstrous, abortive, and feeble attempts at the performance of the evolutionary process, that they remove rapidly antecedent forms when new ones are evolved more in harmony with surrounding conditions, and that their action results in the promotion of new characters when these have once attained sufficient completeness to be of real utility to their possessor.

Continued reflection, and five years' further pondering over the problem of specific origin, have more and more convinced me the conception that the origin of all species,

66

man included," is due simply to conditions which are (to use Mr. Darwin's own words) "strictly accidental," is a conception utterly irrational. This conception is not that of Mr. Wallace, who makes of man a special exception. With regard to the conception as now put forward by Mr. Darwin, however, I cannot truly characterize it but by an epithet which I employ only with much reluctance. I weigh my words, and have present to my mind the many distinguished naturalists who have accepted the notion, and yet I cannot hesitate to call it a "puerile hypothesis.” I call it puerile and not infantine, because in the infancy of nations as of individuals the tendency is to explain each visible action by a direct supernatural intervention. Reaction from this infantine condition tends to the exclusion from our

conception of the First Cause, of knowledge, purpose and will altogether, as in the Ionian Philosophy which reappears amongst us to-day-the puerile view. This puerile view results from a want of appreciation of human reason. Maturity reconciles the apparently diverging truths contained in each assertion and represents the material universe as always and everywhere sustained and directed by an infinite Cause, for which to us the word MIND is the least inadequate and misleading of symbols.

CHAPTER X.

SEXUAL SELECTION.

"Sexual selection is an hypothesis which neither has been nor can be proved true, but the falsehood of which is demonstrated by a mass of zoological data.”

tion, an ac

thesis.

THE hypothesis of "natural selection" having been found Sexual selec- by its author unequal for the task he had ascessory hypo- signed it, that of serving as the explanation of specific origin, he subsequently brought forward to its aid a subordinate hypothesis, which he termed "sexual selection." The present chapter will be devoted to the consideration of what lessons we can derive from nature as to the existence and action of this process.

In considering the Origin of Man, Mr. Darwin brings in his addition of "sexual selection" to the aid of "natural selection." We need not here further consider the action of "natural selection;" but since Mr. Darwin is convinced that the action of "sexual selection" is necessary to account for man's origin and present condition, it will be necessary to consider “sexual selection" at some length. It plays the most important part in the "descent of man," according to Mr. Darwin's views. He maintains that we owe to it our power of song and our hairlessness of body, and that also to it is due the formation and conservation of the various races and varieties of the human species. Indeed "sexual selection" is now the corner-stone of Mr. Darwin's theory. It occupies three-fourths of his work on Man; and unless he has clearly established this point, the whole fabric falls to the ground. It is impossible, therefore, to estimate his views adequately without entering fully into the subject.

made to in

distinct

Under the head of "sexual selection " Mr. Darwin includes, however, two very distinct processes. One of these Has been consists in the action of superior strength or activity, clude two by which one male succeeds in obtaining possession things. of mates and in keeping away rivals. This is, undoubtedly, a vera causa, but may be more conveniently reckonod as one mode of "natural selection” than as a branch of "sexual selection." The second process consists in alleged preference or choice, exercised freely by the female in favour of particular males on account of some attractiveness or beauty of form, colour, odour, or voice, which such males may possess. It is this second form of "sexual selection" (and which alone deserves the name) that is important for the truth of Mr. Darwin's views, but the validity of which has to be proved.

Now, to prove the existence of such a power of choice Mr. Darwin brings forward a multitude of details respecting the sexual phenomena of animals of various classes; but it is the class of birds which is mainly relied on to afford evidence in support of the exercise of this power of choice by female animals. It is contended, however, that not only is the evidence defective even with respect to birds, but that much of his own evidence is in direct opposition to his views; while the unquestionable fact, that male sexual characters (horns, mane, wattles, &c. &c.) are developed in many cases where sexual selection has certainly not acted, renders it probable, à priori, that the unknown cause which has operated in these numerous cases has operated in those instances also which seem to favour the hypothesis Mr. Darwin supports. Still he contends that the greater part of the beauty and melody of the organic world is due exclusively to this selective process, by which, through countless generations, the tail of the peacock, the throat of the humming-bird, the song of the nightingale, and the chirp of the grasshopper have been developed through the females, age after age, selecting for their mates, males possessing in a more and more perfect degree characters which must thus have been continually and constantly preferred.

racters cer

tainly arise indepen

Yet, after all, Mr. Darwin concedes in principle the very Marked cha- point in dispute, and yields all for which his opponents need argue, when he allows that beautiful and dently of it. harmonious variations may occur spontaneously and at once, as in the dark or spangled bars on the feathers of Hamburg fowls ( Descent of Man,' vol. i. p. 281). For what difference is there, other than mere difference of degree, between the spontaneous appearance of a few beautiful new feathers with harmonious markings and the spontaneous appearance of a whole beautiful clothing like that of the Tragopans?

Again, on Mr. Darwin's own showing, it is manifest that male sexual characters, such as he would fain attribute to sexual selection, may arise without any such action whatever. Thus he tells us: "There are breeds of the sheep and goat, in which the horns of the male differ greatly in shape from those of the female;" and "with tortoise-shell cats, the females alone, as a general rule, are thus coloured, the males being rusty-red" (vol. i. p. 283). Now, if these cats were only known in a wild state, Mr. Darwin would certainly bring them forward amongst his other instances of alleged sexual selection, though we now know the phenomenon is not due to any such cause. A more striking instance, however, is the following: "With the pigeon, the sexes of the parent species do not differ in any external character; nevertheless, in certain domesticated breeds the male is differently coloured from the female. The wattle in the English carrier-pigeon, and the crop in the pouter, are more highly developed in the male than in the female;" and this has arisen, "not from, but rather in opposition to, the wishes of the breeders!" This amounts to a positive demonstration that sexual characters may arise spontaneously, and, be it noted, in the class of birds.

As to intestinal worms, he says, on the authority of Dr. Baird:

"The males of certain Entozoa differ slightly in colour from the females; but we have no reason to suppose that such differences have been augmented through sexual selection."