Here again, then, we have the combined action of elimination and selection. And now we may note that selection involves intelligence--involves the play of appetence and choice. Hence it is that, when we come to consider the evolution of human-folk, the principle of elimination is so profoundly modified by the principle of selection. Not only are the weaker eliminated by the inexorable pressure of competition, but we select the more fortunate individuals and heap upon them our favours. This enables us also to soften the rigour of the blinder law; to let the full stress of competitive elimination fall upon the worthless, the idle, the profligate, and the vicious; but to lighten its incidence on the deserving but unfortunate. Both selection and elimination occurring under nature, but elimination having by far the wider scope, we may now inquire what will be their effect as regards the three modes of variation--advantageous, disadvantageous, and neutral. It must be remembered that these modes are relative and dependent upon circumstances, so that variations, neutral under certain conditions, may become relatively disadvantageous under other conditions. Selection clearly leads to the preservation of advantageous variations alone, and these variations are advantageous in so far as they meet the taste of the selecting organism. For selection depends upon individual choice; and uniformity of selection is entirely dependent upon uniformity in the standard of taste. If, as Darwin contends, the splendid plumage and tuneful notes of male birds are the result of a selection of mates by the hens, there must be a remarkable uniformity of taste among the hens of each particular species, since there is a uniformity of coloration among the cock-birds. It may be said that in all their mental endowments there is greater uniformity among animals than among men; and it is true that individuation has not been carried so far in them as in human-folk. Still, careful observers of animals see in them many signs of individual character; and this uniformity in the standard of taste in each species of birds seems to many naturalists a real difficulty in the way of the acceptance of sexual selection. We shall, however, return to this point. For the present it is clear that selection chooses out advantageous variations, that the advantage is determined by the taste of the selector, and that uniform selection implies uniformity of taste.