from Mr. Mantell that, until recently, almost every girl in New Zealand
who was pretty, or promised to be pretty, was tapu to some chief. With
the Kafirs, as Mr. C. Hamilton states (17. Anthropological Review,
Jan. 1870, p. xvi.), the chiefs generally have the pick of the women
for many miles round, and are most persevering in establishing or
confirming their privilege. We have seen that each race has its own
style of beauty, and we know that it is natural to man to admire each
characteristic point in his domestic animals, dress, ornaments, and
personal appearance, when carried a little beyond the average. If then
the several foregoing propositions be admitted, and I cannot see that
they are doubtful, it would be an inexplicable circumstance if the
selection of the more attractive women by the more powerful men of each
tribe, who would rear on an average a greater number of children, did
not after the lapse of many generations somewhat modify the character
of the tribe.
When a foreign breed of our domestic animals is introduced into a new
country, or when a native breed is long and carefully attended to,
either for use or ornament, it is found after several generations to
have undergone a greater or less amount of change whenever the means of
comparison exist. This follows from unconscious selection during a long
series of generations that is, the preservation of the most approved
individuals without any wish or expectation of such a result on the
part of the breeder. So again, if during many years two careful
breeders rear animals of the same family, and do not compare them
together or with a common standard, the animals are found to have
become, to the surprise of their owners, slightly different. (18. The
Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. ii. pp.
210-217.) Each breeder has impressed, as von Nathusius well expresses
it, the character of his own mind his own taste and judgment on his
animals. What reason, then, can be assigned why similar results should
not follow from the long-continued selection of the most admired women
by those men of each tribe who were able to rear the greatest number of
children? This would be unconscious selection, for an effect would be
produced, independently of any wish or expectation on the part of the
men who preferred certain women to others.
Let us suppose 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,
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