if so, this must have occurred long ago, before our ancestors had
become sufficiently human to treat and value their women merely as
useful slaves. The impassioned orator, bard, or musician, when with his
varied tones and cadences he excites the strongest emotions in his
hearers, little suspects that he uses the same means by which his
half-human ancestors long ago aroused each other s ardent passions,
during their courtship and rivalry.
THE INFLUENCE OF BEAUTY IN DETERMINING THE MARRIAGES OF MANKIND.
In civilised life man is largely, but by no means exclusively,
influenced in the choice of his wife by external appearance; but we are
chiefly concerned with primeval times, and our only means of forming a
judgment on this subject is to study the habits of existing
semi-civilised and savage nations. If it can be shewn that the men of
different races prefer women having various characteristics, or
conversely with the women, we have then to enquire whether such choice,
continued during many generations, would produce any sensible effect on
the race, either on one sex or both according to the form of
inheritance which has prevailed.
It will be well first to shew in some detail that savages pay the
greatest attention to their personal appearance. (42. A full and
excellent account of the manner in which savages in all parts of the
world ornament themselves, is given by the Italian traveller, Professor
Mantegazza, Rio de la Plata, Viaggi e Studi, 1867, pp. 525-545; all
the following statements, when other references are not given, are
taken from this work. See, also, Waitz, Introduction to Anthropology,
Eng. translat. vol. i. 1863, p. 275, et passim. Lawrence also gives
very full details in his Lectures on Physiology, 1822. Since this
chapter was written Sir J. Lubbock has published his Origin of
Civilisation, 1870, in which there is an interesting chapter on the
present subject, and from which (pp. 42, 48) I have taken some facts
about savages dyeing their teeth and hair, and piercing their teeth.)
That they have a passion for ornament is notorious; and an English
philosopher goes so far as to maintain, that clothes were first made
for ornament and not for warmth. As Professor Waitz remarks, however
poor and miserable man is, he finds a pleasure in adorning himself.
The extravagance of the naked Indians of South America in decorating
themselves is shewn by a man of large stature gaining with difficulty
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