e ancestors
the beasts, and see what keeps them so true to type.

The type itself set by that balance of conditions and forces we call
"natural selection." As the environment changes they must be adapted to
it, if they cannot so adapt themselves they die. Those who live are, by
living, proven capable of maintaining themselves. Every creature which
has remained on earth, while so many less effective kinds died out,
remains as a conqueror. The speed of the deer--the constant use of
speed--is what keeps it alive and makes it healthy and beautiful. The
varied activities of the life of a leopard are what have developed the
sinuous gracile strength we so admire. It is what the creature does for
its living, its daily life-long exercise which makes it what it is.

But there is another great natural force which works steadily to
keep all animals up to the race standard; that is sexual selection.
Throughout nature the male is the variant, as we have already noted.
His energy finds vent not only in that profuse output of decorative
appendages Ward defines as "masculine efflorescence" but in variations
not decorative, not useful or desirable at all.

The female, on the other hand, varies much less, remaining nearer the
race type; and her function is to select among these varying males
the specimens most valuable to the race. In the intense masculine
competition the victor must necessarily be stronger than his fellows;
he is first proven equal to his environment by having lived to grow
up, then more than equal to his fellows by overcoming them. This higher
grade of selection also develops not only the characteristics necessary
to make a living; but secondary ones, often of a purely aesthetic
nature, which make much of what we call beauty. Between the two, all who
live must be up to a certain grade, and those who become parents must be
above it; a masterly arrangement surely!

Here is where, during the period of our human history, we in our newborn
consciousness and imperfect knowledge, have grievously interfered with
the laws of nature. The ancient proprietary family, treating the woman
as a slave, keeping her a prisoner and subject to the will of her
master, cut her off at once from the exercise of those activities which
alone develop and maintain the race type.

Take the one simple quality of speed. We are a creature built for speed,
a free swift graceful animal; and among savages this is still seen--the
capacity for running,