this position he falls back upon sexual selection, because other members of the order of Primates are found covered with hair in the same regions. And in this, it seems, both parties participated, the man choosing his wife for her attractions, and the woman her husband for his good looks and his ability to take care of and defend her. (9-1143.)

But all human infants are now, and for long ages have been, born without beards-the females remaining without during life-the males sporting them at puberty. As stated above, if primitive man and woman were of exclusively ape parentage, the infants of both sexes must have been covered with hair all over their bodies, including the face; and sexual selection, participated in by both sexes, as Darwin assumes, must in the first instance have removed the beard from the male, as well as the female. Why then does the beard appear upon the face of the male at puberty, and not upon that of the female? Did the æsthetic sense of beauty of the woman undergo such a change in reference to the beard as to restore it by selection? And if restored in that way, why is not the infant male now born with a beard the same as when his progenitor first emerged from apehood?

If the nudity of man was produced by sexual selection, why did mankind subsequently cover their bodies, first with the skins of animals, and

pose? Was there a change of taste, and did the parties become dissatisfied with nakedness?

There is another point more to the purpose, still to be considered in connection with this branch of the subject; and it is, that the change produced by natural selection must be for the benefit of the animal, and that it never originates a change which is injurious. Darwin, in his work on the Origin of Species, after stating that variations useful to man have undoubtedly occurred, and that other variations useful in some way to each being in the great battle of life do probably sometimes occur, says: "On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favorable variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call natural selection. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection, and would be left a fluctuating element, as perhaps we see in the species called polymorphic," (2-78).

He admits that "the loss of hair is an inconvenience and probably an injury to man even in hot climates; for he is thus exposed to sudden chills, especially in wet weather." (9-11–359.) But so fixed is he in the idea that primitive man was born hairy, that he is willing to overrule the most dominant law of his celebrated theory in favor of sexual selection. He says: "The absence of hair on the body is, to a certain extent a sec

world, women are less hairy than men. Therefore, we may reasonably suspect that this is a character which has been gained through sexual selection." (Id. 359–60.) Suspect," indeed; so it would appear, the interference of sexual selection is a matter of guess-work!

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Inasmuch as the inconvenience of nakedness has stimulated the inventive genius of man in protecting himself against the cold, by clothing, the construction of dwellings, and numerous other appliances, whereby he is able to inhabit the most rigorous regions, it is far more rational to conclude that he was originally created in his present naked condition.

It is quite safe to say that animals never take a dislike to their external covering of hair, or feathers, or a thick pachydermic skin, as the case may be. Suppose a chicken hatched without feathers, or an ape born without hair, or a child with a hare-lip, or an albino, the fair inference would be that such cases would be looked upon with dislike as deformities. If men had been hairy, like the ape, that would have been regarded as their normal condition, and any considerable deviation therefrom a deformity. How could our primitive mother have fallen in love with nudity without having seen the specimen of a naked man? Darwin's logic is surely lame in the inference that any race of beings could, as matter of taste, have ever preferred to be divested of their natural clothing.

As some evidence that aboriginal man was cov

It appears that those subject to defective

hairy all over the face, as cases of reversion to the ape. If so, why did they not, in other respects, resemble the ape? born with hairy faces are teeth, and we may therefore fairly infer that owing to some abnormal condition of the mother, the hair has been retained upon the face at the expense of the further development of the teeth. It does not necessarily follow that every case of monstrosity is a reversion; if so, what is to be said of the Siamese twins? Evolutionists of all shades may as well accept the fact, that there are cases of lusus naturæ from time to time occurring, the causes of which are not obvious, and which have no necessary connection with any theory of descent.

That the ape has much to do with the descent of man, I admit; but there is a wide difference between the evolution of man by natural selection, and his creation through prior organic forms which approach nearest to him; a method which is so far special as it differs from the process of re-production.

L

CHAPTER IV.

DARWINISM CONTINUED.

Laws of Heredity-Secondary Sexual Distinctions-Origin of the Sexes, and their distinctions—Rudimentary and Aborted Organs.

The laws which govern heredity are of such manifest influence in connection with the theory of the evolution of the species that Darwin has given the subject extended consideration. If the offspring invariably inherited the form and characteristics of the parent, there would be no possibility of a change of species by natural selection, combined with all the aids derived from changes in the environment, acceleration, retardation, &c.

Darwin, as already mentioned, starts with the idea that the male and female type of any given species were alike except as to the primary distinctions of sex. If this be granted it would follow that heredity would substantially keep them alike. To surmount this difficulty he has been compelled to make rules of descent to meet particular cases, in apparently the most capricious

manner.

In reference to the species of birds which have secondary sexual differences, he holds that the