guided by the variations offered for it to work upon; and though the final result of this, if such variations were affected by sex, might appear very surprising, there would be nothing remarkable in the process by which it had been arrived at. Must not, in fact, a difference of taste as between the two sexes—and that often a very decided one—in any case exist? For the male bird of paradise, let us say, is attracted by the dull hen, whilst she, presumably, admires only the resplendent cock. Beauty is only a relative term, and even the plainest bird possesses a good deal of it. We may, of course, say that it is only the hen bird, in such cases, which can be said to admire, but it would be difficult, I think, to defend this view. Both are sexually excited, and the eye is a channel for both.
These, then, are my arguments in favour of a process of intersexual selection in nature, and I think that those men, at any rate, who grant taste and choice to female animals, should be prepared to grant it, also, to their own sex, though the thinking woman, perhaps, may be expected to take another view. But, of course, I know that there are still numbers of people who do not accept the theory—or, as I would prefer to call it, the fact—of sexual selection at all, even in its narrower scope. I believe, however, that the chariness and hesitation which has been shown in adopting the latter of Darwin's two great principles, is a survival of that attitude of mind which caused such opposition to his whole teaching. Man's body is one thing, but his mind—especially all those supposed high things in it
