THE SEXUAL SELECTION OF MAN: TYPICAL BEAUTY
By the “Sexual Selection of Man” is meant the choice made by men
and women as regards relations with the opposite sex. Mr. Darwin has
shown that such selection takes place among the lower Vertebrata, and,
judging from what we know of domesticated animals, it is much more
common in the case of females than in that of males. The male, indeed,
as a rule, seems to be ready to pair with any female, provided she
belongs to his own species.[1516] As this probably depends upon the
great strength of his sexual impulse, we may infer that in primitive
times, when man had a definite pairing season, he displayed a like
tendency, and that the sexual instinct, in proportion as it has become
less intense, has become more discriminating.
Even now woman is more particular in her choice than man, provided
that the union takes place without reference to interest. A Maori
proverb says, “Let a man be ever so good-looking, he will not be much
sought after; but let a woman be ever so plain, men will still eagerly
seek after her.”[1517] With regard to the Negroes of Sogno, Merolla
da Sorrento states, “Women would have experience of their husbands
before they married them, in like manner as the men were to have of
them; and in this particular I can aver that they are commonly much
more obstinate or fickle than men, for I have known many instances in
which the men were willing to be married, while the women held back,
and either fled away or made excuses.”[1518] Among the Eastern Central
Africans, according to Mr. Macdonald, many cases are known of slave
wives running away from free husbands, but none of slave husbands
running away from free wives.[1519] In the crossings between unequal
human races, the father almost always belongs to the superior race.
“In every case,” says M. de Quatrefages, “and especially in transient
amours, woman refuses to lower herself; man is less delicate.”[1520]
Thus, cases in which negresses form unions with the indigenous men of
America are very rare;[1521] and Dr. Nott, who wrote in the middle of
this century, never personally met any one who was the offspring of
a negro man and a white woman, because of the extreme rarity of such
half-breeds.[1522] In New Zealand it sometimes happens that a European
man marries a Maori woman; but Mr. Kerry Nicholls never came across an
instance where a European woman had married a Maori man.[1523] Even in
civilized society men are less particular in their connections than
women of corresponding education, no doubt, would be, even if the rules
of everyday morality were the same for both sexes.
* * * * *
In this and the following four chapters we shall deal with the
instinctive feelings by which the sexes are guided in the act of
selection. We have already observed that the sexual instinct is excited
by artificial means, such as ornaments, mutilations, &c. Now we have
to consider the intrinsic characters of a human being which affect the
passions of a person of the opposite sex.
Mr. Darwin has shown that, among the lower Vertebrata, the female
commonly gives the preference to “the most vigorous, defiant, and
mettlesome male,”—a taste the origin of which is easily accounted for
by the theory of natural selection. A similar instinctive appreciation
of manly strength and courage is found in women, especially in the
women of savage races. In a song, communicated by Mr. Schoolcraft,
an Indian girl gives the following description of her ideal:— “My
love is tall and graceful as the young pine waving on the hill—And as
swift in his course as the noble stately deer—His hair is flowing,
and dark as the blackbird that floats through the air—And his eyes,
like the eagle’s, both piercing and bright—His heart, it is fearless
and great—And his arm, it is strong in the fight.”[1524] A tale from
Madagascar tells of a princess whose beauty fascinated all men.
Many princes fought to obtain possession of her; but she refused
them all, and chose a lover who was young, handsome, courageous,
and strong.[1525] The beautiful Atalanta gave herself to the best
runner;[1526] and the hero suitors of the Finnish myths had to undergo
difficult trials to prove their courage.[1527] “When a Dyak wants to
marry,” says Mr. Bock, “he must show himself a hero before he can
gain favour with his intended.” He has to secure a number of human
heads by killing men of hostile tribes; and the more heads he cuts off,
the greater the pride and admiration with which he is regarded by his
bride.[1528] The demands of the Sàkalàva girls of Madagascar are less
cruel. When a young man wishes to obtain a wife, his qualifications,
according to Mr. Sibree, are tested thus:—“Placed at a certain
distance from a clever caster of the spear, he is bidden to catch
between his arm and side every spear thrown by the man opposite to him.
If he displays fear or fails to catch the spear, he is ignominiously
rejected; but if there be no flinching and the spears are caught, he
is at once proclaimed an accepted ‘lover.’” It is said that a similar
custom prevailed among the Bétsiléo, another Madagascar tribe.[1529]
Among the Dongolowees, as we are informed by Dr. Felkin, if two men are
suitors for a girl, and there is a difficulty in deciding between the
rivals, the following method is adopted. The fair lady has a knife tied
to each forearm, so fixed that the blade of the knife projects below
the elbow. She then takes up a position on a log of wood, the young
men sitting on either side with their legs closely pressed against
hers. Raising her arms, the girl leans forward, and slowly presses the
knives into the thighs of her would-be husbands. The suitor who best
undergoes this trial of endurance wins the bride, whose first duty
after marriage is to dress the wounds she has herself inflicted.[1530]
Speaking of the natives on the River Darling, Major T. L. Mitchell
says that the possession of gins, or wives, appears to be associated
with all their ideas of fighting; “while, on the other hand, the gins
have it in their power on such occasions to evince that universal
characteristic of the fair, a partiality for the brave. Thus it is,
that, after a battle, they do not always follow their fugitive husbands
from the field, but frequently go over as a matter of course, to the
victors.”[1531]
We may infer that women’s instinctive inclination to strong and
courageous men is due to natural selection in two ways. A strong man
is not only father of strong children, but he is also better able than
a weak man to protect his offspring. The female instinct is especially
well marked at the lower stages of civilization, because bodily vigour
is then of most importance in the struggle for existence. The same
principle explains the attraction which health in a woman has for men.
In civilized society, infirmity and sickliness are not always a serious
hindrance to love, but in a savage state, says Alexander v. Humboldt,
“nothing can induce a man to unite himself to a deformed woman, or one
who is very unhealthy.”[1532]
The ancient Greeks conceived Eros as an extremely handsome youth, and
Aphrodite was the goddess of beauty as well as of love. So closely
are these two ideas—love and beauty—connected. This connection is not
peculiar to the civilized mind. In Tahiti, Cook saw several instances
where women preferred personal beauty to interest.[1533] The Negroes of
the West African Coast, according to Mr. Winwood Reade, often discuss
the beauty of their women;[1534] and, among the cannibal savages of
Northern Queensland, described by Herr Lumholtz, the women take much
notice of a man’s face, especially of the part about the eyes.[1535]
But, although in every country, in every race, beauty stimulates
passion, the ideas of what constitutes beauty vary indefinitely. As
Hume says, “Beauty is no quality in things themselves; it exists
merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a
different beauty.”[1536]
A flat, retreating brow seems to white men to spoil what would
otherwise be a pretty face; but “the Chinook ideal of facial beauty,”
says Mr. Bancroft, “is a straight line from the end of the nose to the
crown of the head.”[1537] A little snubnose may embitter the life of a
European girl; but the Australian natives “laugh at the sharp noses
of Europeans, and call them in their language ‘tomahawk noses,’ much
preferring their own style of flat broad noses.”[1538] The Tahitians
frequently said to Mr. Williams, “What a pity it is that English
mothers pull the children’s noses so much, and make them so frightfully
long!”[1539] We admire white teeth and rosy cheeks; but a servant
of the king of Cochin China spoke with contempt of the wife of the
English ambassador, because she had white teeth like a dog and a rosy
colour like that of potato flowers.[1540] In the northern parts of the
Chinese Empire, according to Pallas, those women are preferred who are
of the Manchu type,—that is, who have a broad face, high cheek-bones,
very broad noses, and enormous ears;[1541] and the South American
Uaupés consider a swollen calf one of the chief attractions a young
lady can possess, the result being that girls wear a tight garter below
the knee from infancy.[1542]
Even among the Aryan peoples the standard of beauty varies. “To an
honest Fleming, who has never studied design,” says M. Bombet, “the
forms of Rubens’s women are the most beautiful in the world. Let not
us, who admire slenderness of form above everything else, and to whom
the figures even of Raphael’s women appear rather massive, be too ready
to laugh at him. If we were to consider the matter closely, it would
appear that each individual, and, consequently, each nation, has a
separate idea of beauty.”[1543]
What human characteristics are considered beautiful, and how has
beauty come to influence the sexual selection of man? In trying to
answer these questions, we shall note only such characteristics as
are held to be beautiful by considerable groups of men, apart from
individual differences of taste; and we shall confine ourselves to
physical beauty, as presenting itself in bodily forms and the colour
of the skin. Mr. Spencer maintains that “mental and facial perfection
are fundamentally connected,” and that “the aspects which please
us are the outward correlatives of inward perfections, while the
aspects which displease us are the outward correlatives of inward
imperfections.”[1544] But Mr. Spencer evidently looks upon beauty, or
“facial perfection,” as something real in the sense in which mental
qualities are real,—an opinion with which it is difficult to agree.
The lateral jutting-out of the cheek-bones, which seems to him an index
of imperfection, is admired by many of the lower races.
The full development of those visible properties which are essential
to the human organism is universally recognized as indispensable to
perfect beauty,—natural deformity, the unsymmetrical shape of the
body, apparent traces of disease, &c., being regarded by every race as
unfavourable to personal appearance. We distinguish between masculine
and feminine beauty, and, in spite of racial differences, the ideas
of what constitute these forms of beauty are fundamentally the same
throughout the world. To be really handsome a person must approach
the ideal type of his or her sex. The male organism is remarkable for
the development of the muscular system, the female for that of fatty
elements; and conspicuous muscles are everywhere considered to improve
the appearance of a man, rounded forms that of a woman. According to v.
Humboldt, the natives of Guiana, to express the beauty of a woman, say
that “she is fat and has a narrow forehead.” A traveller found that
a Kirghiz’s estimate of female beauty was regulated by the amount of
fat, “for even when dilating on the beauties of his favourite wife,
he laid the greatest stress on her _embonpoint_.”[1545] The Kafirs
and Hottentots are charmed by their women’s long and pendant breasts,
which, in certain tribes, assume such monstrous dimensions, that the
usual way of giving suck, when the child is carried on the back, is
by throwing the breast over the shoulder.[1546] Mr. Reade tells us
that, among the Mpongwé of Gaboon, even very young girls “strive to
emulate the pendant beauties of their seniors.”[1547] The Makololo
women, according to Dr. Livingstone, make themselves fat and pretty
by drinking a peculiar drink called “boyáloa”;[1548] and, among the
Trarsa, a Moorish tribe in the Western Sahara, the women take immense
quantities of milk and butter to make themselves more attractive.[1549]
Such exaggerations, however repugnant to a more refined taste,
indicate a general tendency in men’s notions of female beauty.
Among Europeans, men are on an average two or three inches taller than
women,[1550] and have a greater breadth of shoulder. A high-built
and broad-shouldered figure is also regarded as an ideal of manly
beauty, whereas women who are very tall or broad are apt to be rather
awkward. A woman’s face is shorter, her mouth less broad, her nose less
prominent, her neck longer, her pelvis wider, her waist narrower than
a man’s; and her fingers are more slender and pointed, her hands and
feet smaller. The halving line of a woman’s body is lower than that of
a man’s, so that her steps are shorter and lighter.[1551] As a matter
of fact, a long face, a broad mouth, and large hands and feet are much
more objectionable in a woman than in a man. Women have a special
liking for low-bodied dresses, which display the full length of the
neck; and by means of a corset they make the waist narrower than it is
by nature.
There is thus an ideal of beauty which, no doubt, may be said to be
common to the whole human race. But this ideal is merely an abstraction
which can never be realized. General similarities in taste are
accompanied by specific differences. Though every one admits that
a face without a nose is ugly, no particular form of the nose is
universally admired; and races which regard a swelling bosom as essen—
tial to feminine beauty differ widely from the Hottentots as to the
charm of pendant breasts.
Every race has, indeed, its own standard of beauty. Alexander von
Humboldt long ago observed, “Nations attach the idea of beauty
to everything which particularly characterizes their own physical
conformation, their natural physiognomy. Thence it results that,
if nature have bestowed very little beard, a narrow forehead, or
a brownish-red skin, every individual thinks himself beautiful in
proportion as his body is destitute of hair, his head flattened,
his skin more covered with ‘annotto,’ or ‘chica,’ or some other
coppery-red colour.”[1552] This view has been adopted by several later
writers,[1553] but, as it has been disputed by others,[1554] it may
be well to bring together some fresh evidence, as an addition to that
collected by Mr. Darwin.
The Sinhalese, says Dr. Davy, who are great connoisseurs of the charms
of the sex, and have books on the subject, and rules to aid the
judgment, would not allow a woman to be perfectly beautiful unless she
had the following characteristics:—“Her hair should be voluminous like
the tail of the peacock, long, reaching to the knees, and terminating
in graceful curls; her nose should be like the bill of the hawk, and
lips bright and red, like coral on the young leaf of the iron-tree.
Her neck should be large and round, her chest capacious, her breasts
firm and conical, like the yellow cocoa-nut, and her waist small—almost
small enough to be clasped by the hand. Her lips should be wide; her
limbs tapering; the soles of her feet without any hollow, and the
surface of her body in general, soft, delicate, smooth, and rounded,
without the asperities of projecting bones and sinews.” Dr. Davy adds,
“The preceding is the most general external character that can be
given of the Sinhalese.”[1555]
The women of the Indo-European race are remarkable for the length of
their hair. “Dans nos contrées,” Isidore Geoffroy observes, “ces
développements ajoutent à la beauté des femmes; dans d’autres pays,
si on les y observait, ils passeraient presque pour de légers vices
de conformation.”[1556] “A small round face,” says Castrén, “full
rosy red cheeks and lips, white forehead, black tresses, and small
dark eyes are marks of a Samoyede beauty. Thus in a Samoyedian song
a girl is praised for her small eyes, her broad face, and its rosy
colour.”[1557] These, as we know, are the typical characteristics of
the Samoyedes.[1558] As to the Tartar women, who generally have far
less prominent noses than we in Europe are accustomed to see, Father
de Rubruquis states, “The less their noses the handsomer they are
esteemed.”[1559] In Fiji, the remarkably broad occiput, peculiar
to its people, is looked upon as a mark of beauty.[1560] Among the
Egyptians Mr. Lane scarcely ever saw corpulent persons, and, unlike
many other African peoples, they do not admire very fat women:—“In
his love-songs, the Egyptian commonly describes the object of his
affections as of slender figure, and small waist.”[1561] “The
negroes,” says v. Humboldt, “give the preference to the thickest and
most prominent lips; the Kalmucks to turned-up noses; and the Greeks,
in the statues of heroes, raised the facial line from 85° to 100°
beyond nature. The Aztecs, who never disfigure the heads of their
children, represent their principal divinities, as their hieroglyphical
manuscripts prove, with a head much more flattened than any I have ever
seen among the Caribs.”[1562]
The fashion, prevalent among many peoples, of transforming parts of
the body, affords a good illustration of their ideas about personal
beauty. The Indians of North America, who have a low and flat forehead,
often exaggerate this natural peculiarity by an artificial flattening
of the forehead.[1563] In Tahiti, Samoa, and other islands of the
Pacific Ocean, it has been customary from time immemorial to flatten
the occiputs and to press the noses of the infants, as Professor
Gerland observes, in order to increase a national characteristic which
is considered beautiful.[1564] The same practice occurs in Sumatra,
and Marsden could learn no other reason for it, but that it was an
improvement of beauty in the estimation of the natives.[1565] Among
the Ovambo of South Africa, the fashion is quite different:—“With
the exception of the crown, which is always left untouched,” says
Andersson, “the men often shave the head, which has the effect of
magnifying the natural prominence of the hinder parts of it.”[1566]
Among the Chinese, small feet are considered a woman’s chief
attraction; hence the feet of girls are pressed from early childhood.
Now we know from the measurements made by Scherzer and Schwarz, that
Chinese women have by nature unusually small feet—a peculiarity which
has always distinguished them from their Tartar neighbours. And, as a
matter of fact, the Manchu Tartars, who at present rule the Chinese
Empire, never press the feet of their daughters.[1567]
Each race considers its own colour preferable to every other. The
North American Indians admire “a tawny hide,” and the Chinese dislike
the white skin of the Europeans.[1568] Some young New Zealanders, who
themselves were lightly copper-coloured, were greatly amused at the
dark tint of an Australian, and laughed at him for being so ugly.[1569]
Barrington tells us on the other hand, of an Australian woman, who,
having had a child by a white man, smoked it and rubbed it with oil to
give it a darker colour.[1570] The Hovas, who are probably, as a rule,
the lightest people in Madagascar, often put a spot of dark colour on
the cheeks, in order to heighten the effect of their fair complexion,
of which they are very proud.[1571] Among the Malays, according to Mr.
Crawfurd, “the standard of perfection in colour is virgin gold, and,
as a European lover compares the bosom of his mistress to the whiteness
of snow, the East Insular lover compares that of his to the yellowness
of the precious metal.”[1572]
The object of the painting of the body, so commonly practised among
savages, seems sometimes to be to exaggerate the natural colour of the
skin. Von Humboldt believes that this is the reason why the American
Indians paint themselves with red ochre and earth.[1573] The natives
of Tana, who have the colour of an old copper coin, usually dye their
bodies a few shades darker;[1574] whilst the Bornabi Islanders, who
have a light copper-coloured complexion, “anoint their bodies with
turmeric, in order to give themselves a whiter appearance.”[1575]
The Javanese, when in full dress, smear themselves with a yellow
cosmetic.[1576] And, speaking of the people of a place in Maabar
(Coromandel Coast), Marco Polo says, “The children that are born here
are black enough, but the blacker they be the more they are thought
of; wherefore from the day of their birth their parents do rub them
every week with oil of sesamé, so that they become as black as devils.
Moreover, they make their gods black and their devils white, and the
images of their saints they do paint black all over.”[1577]
The question,—What characteristics of the human form are deemed
beautiful? may now be answered. Men find beauty in the full development
of the visible characteristics belonging to the human organism in
general; of those peculiar to the sex; of those peculiar to the race.
We have next to consider the connection of love and beauty.
That this connection does not depend upon the æsthetic pleasure excited
by beauty is obvious from the fact that the intrinsic character of
an æsthetic feeling is disinterestedness, whereas the intrinsic
character of love is the very reverse. So far as beauty implies the
full development of characteristics essential to the human organism,
or to either of the sexes, the preference given to it follows from the
instinctive inclination to healthiness, already mentioned, and needs
no further discussion. The question is to explain the stimulating
influence of racial perfection.
“In barbarous nations,” says v. Humboldt, “there is a physiognomy
peculiar to the tribe or horde rather than to any individual. When we
compare our domestic animals with those which inhabit our forests, we
make the same observation.”[1578] The accuracy of this statement has
been confirmed by later writers;[1579] and we may say with M. Godron,
“C’est —aujourd’hui un fait parfaitement acquis à la science, que plus
un peuple se rapproche de l’état de nature, plus les hommes qui le
composent se ressemblent entre eux.”[1580] This likeness does not refer
to the physiognomy only, but to the body as a whole. The variations of
stature, for instance, are known to be least considerable among the
peoples least advanced in civilization.[1581]
It cannot be doubted that this greater similarity is due partly to
the greater uniformity of the conditions of life to which uncivilized
peoples are subject. According to Villermé and Quetelet, an inequality
of stature is observed not only between the inhabitants of towns on
the one hand and those of the country on the other, but also, in the
interior of towns, between individuals of different professions.[1582]
There is, however, another factor, which is, I think, of still greater
importance.
The deviations from the national type, which occur sporadically, have
been considered the result of disease, and can, as Professor Waitz
observes, “but rarely become permanent, as the national type is
always that which harmonizes with the soil and the climate, and the
external relations in which the respective peoples live.”[1583] We must
assume that a certain kind of constitution is best suited for certain
conditions of life, and that every considerable deviation from this
must perish in the struggle for existence in a state in which natural
selection is constantly at work and physical qualities are of the
first importance. We know from Isidore Geoffroy’s investigations that
persons who deviate much, with regard to the length of body, from the
common standard—they may be dwarfs or giants—are, as a rule, abnormal
in other respects also, being deficient in intelligence as well as in
the power of reproduction, and being especially liable to premature
death.[1584] Sir W. Lawrence, too, remarks that the strength of men
who have considerably exceeded the ordinary standard has by no means
corresponded to their size, and that “there are very few instances of
what we can deem healthy, well-made men, with all the proper attributes
of the race, much below the general standard.”[1585] If, among
civilized peoples, such deviations indicate some disturbance of the
vital functions, and, as a consequence, are unfavourable to existence,
this must be even more the case with savage tribes, all the members
of which are subject to nearly the same conditions of life. Abnormal
characteristics may sometimes flourish in a highly civilized society,
but they are doomed to perish in communities among whom the struggle
for existence is far more severe.
It may at first sight seem strange that all the characteristics,
however slight, in which the various races of men differ from each
other, should harmonize with particular conditions of life to the
exclusion of others. But it must be remembered that, if we had fuller
knowledge, characteristics which seem to us useless, or even hurtful,
might be seen to be useful. We know the utility of _some_ special
characteristics, and that of others may, at least provisionally,
be assumed. It is certain that the physiological functions of most
persons who quit their native land and settle in a wholly different
region, must undergo a considerable change if the new conditions are
not to have injurious effects. Moreover, many bodily structures are so
intimately related, that when one part varies others vary also, though,
in most instances, we are quite unable to assign any reason why this
should be the case.
Savage men are generally distinguished for relatively large jaws,
which, no doubt, are of use in a state of nature, where food is often
hard and tough, where the jaws have to perform the functions of knife
and fork, and where the teeth occasionally serve as implements. This
racial peculiarity, being in fact only a mark of low civilization, is
thus easily accounted for by the law of natural selection. The less
man, with advancing civilization, was in want of large and strong jaws,
the greater was the chance for individuals born with smaller jaws to
survive; hence a race with comparatively small jaws gradually arose.
Indeed, Professor Virchow has shown that the prognathous type of face
is inconsistent with the full development of the brain.[1586]
Another peculiarity which characterizes the lower races of men is the
lateral jutting-out of the cheek-bones. But, as Mr. Spencer observes,
this excessive size of the cheek-bones is only an accompaniment of
large jaws. Other peculiarities of feature—depression of the bridge of
the nose, forward opening of the nostrils, wide-spread _alæ_, and a
long and large mouth—constantly coexist with large and protuberant jaws
and great cheek-bones, alike in uncivilized races and in the young of
civilized races;[1587] hence we cannot believe that the connection is
merely accidental.
Professor Schaaffhausen has noticed that many peculiarities of the
skull are coincident with arrested cerebral development and correlated
to each other:—“The characters observed in the skulls of the lower
races, namely, a narrow and low frontal bone, a short sagittal
suture, a low temporal squama, a short occipital squama, the upper
margin of which forms a flat arch, are therefore to be considered
as approximations to the animal form, and they stand to each other
in organic connection.”[1588] It seems as if stature and muscular
force were in some way connected with the dolichocephalic and the
brachycephalic forms of the skull, for Welcker found that short men and
short races incline more to the latter, tall men and tall races to the
former. Again, according to Fick, the muscles exercise a remarkable
influence on the form of the bones in general, and particularly upon
some cranial bones.[1589]
The process of acclimatization affords opportunities for the study of
the connection between organic structures and functions on the one
hand, and surrounding nature on the other. At present, however, our
knowledge of the subject is exceedingly scanty. It has been asserted
that the curly hair of the European becomes straight in America,—like
the hair of an Indian; that in North America, as in New South Wales,
children of European parents are apt to become tall and lean, whilst
there is a tendency among European colonists at the Cape to grow
fat,—which reminds us of the steatopygy of the native women.[1590]
Almost all that we know with certainty is that, in the process of
acclimatization, man has to undergo a change, and that this change is
often too great to be endurable. As Dr. Felkin observes, Europeans are
almost incapable of forming colonies in the tropics;[1591] and, with
few exceptions, they have been unable to rear a sound progeny there
in marriage with white women.[1592] Colonel Hadden, who has spent
sixteen years in India, informs me that it is a prevalent opinion
among British officers in that country that an English regiment of a
thousand men would, within thirteen years, from climate, disease, or
other casualties, almost wholly die out. This statement well agrees
with Professor Sprenger’s, that a regiment consisting of eight hundred
men loses within ten years more than seven hundred.[1593] It is
also, according to Colonel Hadden, a common report that, of a third
generation of pure Europeans in India, children only are, occasionally,
met with, and that they never reach the age of puberty.[1594] English
parents, as a rule, send their children to Europe when five or six
years old, as otherwise they would succumb.[1595] According to
Mr. Squier, it is the concurrent testimony of all intelligent and
observing men in Central America that the pure whites are there not
only relatively but absolutely decreasing in numbers, whilst the
pure Indians are rapidly increasing, and the Ladinos more and more
approximating to the aboriginal type.[1596]
The colour of the skin is justly considered one of the chief
characteristics of race. Now it is quite impossible to assign any
definite reason why one race is white, another black, brown, or
yellow. Nobody has yet been able to prove that the colour of the skin
is of any direct use to man, and it certainly is not the immediate
result of long exposure to a certain climate. But we know that there
exists an intimate connection between the colour of the skin and
bodily constitution. “Les colorations diverses,” says M. Godron,
“qui distinguent les différentes variétés de l’espèce humaine,
tiennent beaucoup moins aux agents physiques, qu’aux phénomènes les
plus intimes de l’organisation qui dans l’état actuel de la science,
nous échappent et resteront peut-être toujours couverts d’un voile
impénétrable.”[1597] Thus the alteration in the customary physiological
functions called acclimatization, seems often to be connected with
some change of colour not directly depending upon the influence of the
sun. Dr. Mayer observed that a European at the tropics loses his rosy
complexion, the difference in colour between arterial and venous blood
being strikingly diminished on account of the smaller absorption of
oxygen, which results from the feebler process of combustion.[1598]
According to Dr. Tylor, it is asserted that the pure negro in the
United States has undergone a change which has left him a shade lighter
in complexion;[1599] whilst a long medical experience at New Orleans
showed Dr. Visinié that the blood of the American negro has lost the
excess of plasticity which it possessed in Africa.[1600] A negro boy
brought to Germany by Gerhard Rohlfs, changed his colour after a
residence of two years, from deep black to light brown.[1601] Klinkosch
mentions the case of a negro who lost his blackness and became yellow;
and Caldani declares that a negro, who was a shoemaker at Venice,
was black when brought, during infancy, to that city, but became
gradually lighter, and had the hue of a person suffering from a slight
jaundice.[1602] In the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ there is even a
record of a negro who became as white as a European.[1603] On the other
hand, we are told of an English gentleman Macnaughten by name, who
long lived the life of a native in the jungle of Southern India, and
acquired, even on the clothed portions of his body, a skin as brown as
that of a Brahman.[1604] These statements, if true, certainly refer to
exceedingly exceptional cases, but their accuracy cannot be _à priori_
denied. We know that certain organisms are much better able than others
to undergo the change which constitutes acclimatization, and we have
no positive reason to doubt that this power may, in abnormal cases, be
extraordinarily great. At any rate, it is beyond doubt that a close
connection exists between the colour of the skin and the physiological
functions of the body, on the one hand, and between these and the
conditions of life on the other. Disease is commonly accompanied by a
change of colour. Mr. Wallace observes that, in many islands of the
Malay Archipelago, species of widely different genera of butterflies
differ in precisely the same way as to colour or form from allied
species in other islands.[1605] The same thing occurs to a less degree
in other parts of the world also. And Agassiz has pointed out that,
in Asia and Africa, the large apes and the human races have the same
colour of the skin.[1606]
We may thus take for granted that racial peculiarities stand in some
connection with the external circumstances in which the various races
live. It may perhaps be objected that we meet with native tribes of
various types on the same degree of latitude, and under the same
climatic conditions.[1607] But we must remember that it is often
impossible to decide whether the conditions of life are exactly the
same; that intermixture of blood has caused a great confusion of racial
types; and that all peoples have arrived at their present localities
after more or less extensive migrations. We may be sure that some
characters have been preserved from earlier times when the race lived
in other circumstances, and that the higher its degree of civilization
the less likely it would be to lose the stamp impressed upon it.[1608]
It is, however, exceedingly doubtful whether racial differences are so
directly the result of external influences as anthropologists generally
believe,—that is, whether they are the inherited effects of conditions
of life to which previous generations have been subject. Professor
Weismann, as is well known, thinks that acquired characters are not
transmitted from parent to offspring. “It has never been proved,” he
says, “that acquired characters are transmitted, and it has never been
demonstrated that, without the aid of such transmission, the evolution
of the organic world becomes unintelligible.”[1609] Man has from time
immemorial mutilated his body in various ways, and there is not a
single well-founded case of these mutilations having been inherited
by the offspring.[1610] The children of accomplished pianists do not
inherit the art of playing the piano. Facts show that children of
highly civilized nations have no trace of a language, when they have
grown up in a wild condition and in complete isolation.[1611] Change in
colour influenced by sun and air is obviously temporary. The children
of the husbandman, or of the sailor, are just as fair as those of the
most delicate and pale inhabitant of a city; and, although the Moors,
who have lived in Africa since the seventh century, are generally in
mature life very sunburnt, their children are as white as those born in
Europe, and “restent blancs toute leur vie, quand leurs travaux ne les
exposent pas aux ardeurs du soleil.”[1612]
Such facts are certainly not in favour of the prevalent theory that the
differences of race are due to direct adaptation. Whether Professor
Weismann’s theory proves to be well founded or not, we manifestly
cannot assume that the heredity of acquired characters suffices to
explain the origin of the human races. It seems most probable that, at
the very earliest stages of human evolution, mankind was restricted to
a comparatively small area, and was then homogeneous, as every animal
and vegetable species is under similar conditions. In the struggle
for existence the intellectual faculties of man were developed, and
before the breaking away of isolated groups he may have invented the
art of making fire, and of fabricating the simplest implements and
weapons. This mental superiority made it possible for man to disperse,
enabling him to exist even under conditions somewhat different from
those to which he was originally adapted. His organism had to undergo
certain changes, but we are not aware that these modifications were
transmitted to descendants. All that we know is, that the children born
were not exactly like each other, and that those who happened to vary
most in accordance with the new conditions of life as a rule survived,
and became the ancestors of following generations. The congenital
characters which enabled them to survive were of course transmitted
to their offspring, and thus, through natural selection,[1613] races
would gradually arise, the members of each of which would have as
hereditary dispositions the same peculiarities as those which, to a
certain extent, may be acquired through acclimatization, but then
only for the individual himself, not for his descendants. We can thus
understand how the children of a negro are black[1614]—even if they are
born in Europe[1615]—as the black colour is the correlative of certain
physiological processes favourable to existence in the country of their
race. They survive, whilst the children of Europeans who have emigrated
to the tropics are carried off in great numbers, even though their
parents have succeeded in undergoing the functional modifications which
accompanied the change of abode.
This explanation of racial differences seems the more acceptable, when
we take into consideration the immense period which has elapsed since
man began to spread over the earth, and the slow and gradual change
of abodes. He was not at once moved from the tropics to the polar
zones, or from the polar zones to the tropics, but had to undergo an
indefinitely long chain of adaptive processes. Thus were gradually
established such radical differences as those which distinguish a
European from a negro, an Australian from a Red-skin.
* * * * *
We have now found an answer to our question, why man, in the choice of
mate, gives the preference to the best representatives of his race. The
full development of racial characters indicates health, a deviation
from them indicates disease. Physical beauty is thus in every respect
the outward manifestation of physical perfection, or healthiness, and
the development of the instinct which prefers beauty to ugliness is
evidently within the power of natural selection.
This explanation of the connection between love and beauty, as also
of the origin of the races of men, is very different from that given
by Mr. Darwin. “The men of each race,” he says, “prefer what they
are accustomed to; they cannot endure any great change; but they
like variety, and admire each characteristic carried to a moderate
extreme.... As the great anatomist Bichat long ago said, if every one
were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty.
If all our women were to become as beautiful as the Venus de’ Medici,
we should for a time be charmed; but we should soon wish for variety,
and as soon as we had obtained variety, we should wish to see certain
characters a little exaggerated beyond the then existing common
standard.”[1616]
In the fashions of our own dress, says Mr. Darwin, we see exactly
the same principle and the same desire to carry every point to an
extreme.[1617] Man prefers, to a certain extent, what he is accustomed
to see. Thus the Maoris, who are in the habit of dyeing their lips
blue, consider it “a reproach to a woman to have red lips;”[1618]
and we ourselves dislike, on the whole, any great deviation from the
leading fashions. But, on the other hand, man wants variety. Now in
one, now in another way, he changes his dress in order to attract
attention, or to charm. The fashions of savages are certainly more
permanent than ours;[1619] but the extreme diversity of ornaments with
which many uncivilized peoples bedeck themselves, shows their emulation
to make themselves attractive by means of new enticements. “Each
of the Outanatas (New Guinea),” says Mr. Earl, “seemed desirous of
ornamenting himself in some way different from his neighbour;”[1620]
and, with regard to the Pacific Islanders, Mr. John Williams remarks
that “the inhabitants of almost every group ... have their peculiar
ideas as to what constitutes an addition to beauty.”[1621] But it is
impossible to believe that the different races’ ideal of personal
beauty are in any way connected with this capriciousness of taste.
Were this the case, as Mr. Darwin suggests, the men of each race would
admire variations and piquant peculiarities in the appearance of their
women, and not only each _characteristic_ point “carried to a moderate
extreme.”
According to Mr. Darwin, racial differences are due to the different
standards of beauty, whereas, according to the theory here indicated,
the different standards of beauty are due to racial differences. “Let
us suppose,” says Mr. Darwin, “the members of a tribe, practising
some form of marriage, to spread over an unoccupied continent, they
would soon split up into distinct hordes, separated from each other
by various barriers, and still more effectually by the incessant wars
between all barbarous nations. The hordes would thus be exposed to
slightly different conditions and habits of life, and would sooner or
later come to differ in some small degree. As soon as this occurred,
each isolated tribe would form for itself a slightly different standard
of beauty; and then unconscious selection would come into action
through the more powerful and leading men preferring certain women to
others. Thus the differences between the tribes, at first very slight,
would gradually and inevitably be more or less increased.”[1622] This
theory—that racial differences are due to sexual selection—obviously
presupposes either that the human organism is alike well fitted to any
climate and natural conditions; or that no correlation exists between
the visible parts of the body and its functions. Otherwise, of course,
little effect could be produced through the preference given to certain
individuals; for in a savage state, where celibacy is an exception,
those men and women whose constitution was best suited to the
conditions of life would, in any case, in the end, determine the racial
type. It is also difficult to see how those slight variations from the
original human type, which, according to Mr. Darwin, characterized
the distinct hordes or tribes into which mankind was split up, could
have developed into such enormous differences as we find in the colour
of the skin of, for example, a negro and a European—only through the
selection of the best representatives of these tribal peculiarities,
these slight variations. Finally, it seems doubtful whether Mr. Darwin
would have ascribed racial differences in colour to the influence
of sexual selection, had he considered the important fact, already
mentioned, that the larger apes have the same colour of the skin as the
human races living in the same country.
Mr. Darwin also thinks that the differences in external appearance
between man and the lower animals are, to a certain extent, due to
sexual selection. The chief character of the human race which he
proposes to account for in this way is the general hairlessness of the
body. “No one supposes,” he says, “that the nakedness of the skin
is any direct advantage to man; his body therefore cannot have been
divested of hair through natural selection.”[1623] It is curious that
the hairlessness of man has puzzled so many anthropologists,[1624] as
it may very easily be explained by the law of variation. When man had
invented the art of making fire, and the idea of covering himself to
secure protection from cold had occurred to his mind, hairlessness
was no serious disadvantage in the struggle for existence. Hence
natural selection ceased to operate in the matter, and a hairless race
gradually arose. We find the same principle at work in various other
ways. Civilized man does not need such keen vision as savages;[1625]
consequently many of us are short-sighted and few Europeans could
match a Red Indian in his power of detecting the symptoms of a trail.
For the same reason we are generally inferior to savages in the
capacity for discriminating odours, and our teeth are apt to be very
much less sound and vigorous than theirs.
That sexual selection has had _some_ influence on the physical aspect
of mankind is probable. Accurate observers in different parts of the
world have remarked that personal deformities are very rare in savage
races unaffected by European influence.[1626] This chiefly depends upon
the fact that deformed individuals seldom survive the hardships of
early life, but, as Sir W. Lawrence says, if they do survive, they are
prevented by the kind of aversion they inspire from propagating their
deformities.[1627] It is not unlikely that the selection of the best
representatives of the race contributes to keep the racial type pure.
Sexual selection, too, may be the cause why, among savages, the men are
so often handsomer than the women—that is, better specimens of their
sex and their race;[1628] whilst, in civilized society, the reverse is
true. We have seen that savage women have great liberty of disposing
of their own hand, and that, at lower stages of civilization, celibacy
occurs almost exclusively among the men. Among us, on the contrary,
the unmarried women outnumber the unmarried men, and, whilst a man’s
ability to marry depends only to a small extent upon his personal
appearance, the like may certainly not be said of women.