The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Vol. IDarwin, Charles
Science
The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Vol. I
Darwin, Charles
Evolution (Biology); Human beings -- Origin; Sex differences; Sexual dimorphism (Animals); Sexual selection in animals
Judging from the habits of savages and of the greater number of the
Quadrumana, primeval men, and even the ape-like progenitors of man,
probably lived in society. With strictly social animals, natural
selection sometimes acts indirectly on the individual, through the
preservation of variations which are beneficial only to the community. A
community including a large number of well-endowed individuals increases
in number and is victorious over other and less well-endowed
communities; although each separate member may gain no advantage over
the other members of the same community. With associated insects many
remarkable structures, which are of little or no service to the
individual or its own offspring, such as the pollen-collecting
apparatus, or the sting of the worker-bee, or the great jaws of
soldier-ants, have been thus acquired. With the higher social animals, I
am not aware that any structure has been modified solely for the good of
the community, though some are of secondary service to it. For instance,
the horns of ruminants and the great canine teeth of baboons appear to
have been acquired by the males as weapons for sexual strife, but they
are used in defence of the herd or troop. In regard to certain mental
faculties the case, as we shall see in the following chapter, is wholly
different; for these faculties have been chiefly, or even exclusively,
gained for the benefit of the community; the individuals composing the
community being at the same time indirectly benefited.
It has often been objected to such views as the foregoing, that man is
one of the most helpless and defenceless creatures in the world; and
that during his early and less well-developed condition he would have
been still more helpless. The Duke of Argyll, for instance, insists[220]
that “the human frame has diverged from the structure of brutes, in the
direction of greater physical helplessness and weakness. That is to say,
it is a divergence which of all others it is most impossible to ascribe
to mere natural selection.” He adduces the naked and unprotected state
of the body, the absence of great teeth or claws for defence, the little
strength of man, his small speed in running, and his slight power of
smell, by which to discover food or to avoid danger. To these
deficiencies there might have been added the still more serious loss of
the power of quickly climbing trees, so as to escape from enemies.
Seeing that the unclothed Fuegians can exist under their wretched
climate, the loss of hair would not have been a great injury to primeval
man, if he inhabited a warm country. When we compare defenceless man
with the apes, many of which are provided with formidable canine teeth,
we must remember that these in their fully-developed condition are
possessed by the males alone, being chiefly used by them for fighting
with their rivals; yet the females which are not thus provided, are able
to survive.
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