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
We are, however, here concerned only with that kind of selection, which
I have called sexual selection. This depends on the advantage which
certain individuals have over other individuals of the same sex and
species, in exclusive relation to reproduction. When the two sexes
differ in structure in relation to different habits of life, as in the
cases above mentioned, they have no doubt been modified through natural
selection, accompanied by inheritance limited to one and the same sex.
So again the primary sexual organs, and those for nourishing or
protecting the young, come under this same head; for those individuals
which generated or nourished their offspring best, would leave, _cæteris
paribus_, the greatest number to inherit their superiority; whilst those
which generated or nourished their offspring badly, would leave but few
to inherit their weaker powers. As the male has to search for the
female, he requires for this purpose organs of sense and locomotion, but
if these organs are necessary for the other purposes of life, as is
generally the case, they will have been developed through natural
selection. When the male has found the female he sometimes absolutely
requires prehensile organs to hold her; thus Dr. Wallace informs me that
the males of certain moths cannot unite with the females if their tarsi
or feet are broken. The males of many oceanic crustaceans have their
legs and antennæ modified in an extraordinary manner for the prehension
of the female; hence we may suspect that owing to these animals being
washed about by the waves of the open sea, they absolutely require these
organs in order to propagate their kind, and if so their development
will have been the result of ordinary or natural selection.
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