e only a secondary cause of
external modification. I hope you may get the returns from the Army.
(406*/3. Measurements taken of more than one million soldiers in the
United States showed that "local influences of some kind act directly
on structure."--"Descent of Man," 1901, page 45.) They would be very
interesting, but I do not expect the results would be favourable to your
view.

With regard to the constant battles of savages leading to selection of
physical superiority, I think it would be very imperfect and subject to
so many exceptions and irregularities that it would produce no definite
result. For instance: the strongest and bravest men would lead, and
expose themselves most, and would therefore be most subject to wounds
and death. And the physical energy which led to any one tribe delighting
in war, might lead to its extermination, by inducing quarrels with
all surrounding tribes and leading them to combine against it. Again,
superior cunning, stealth, and swiftness of foot, or even better
weapons, would often lead to victory as well as mere physical strength.
Moreover, this kind of more or less perpetual war goes on amongst savage
peoples. It could lead, therefore, to no differential characters, but
merely to the keeping up of a certain average standard of bodily and
mental health and vigour.

So with selection of variations adapted to special habits of life as
fishing, paddling, riding, climbing, etc., etc., in different races,
no doubt it must act to some extent, but will it be ever so rigid as to
induce a definite physical modification, and can we imagine it to have
had any part in producing the distinct races that now exist?

The sexual selection you allude to will also, I think, have been equally
uncertain in its results. In the very lowest tribes there is rarely much
polygamy, and women are more or less a matter of purchase. There is also
little difference of social condition, and I think it rarely happens
that any healthy and undeformed man remains without wife and children.
I very much doubt the often-repeated assertion that our aristocracy
are more beautiful than the middle classes. I allow that they present
specimens of the highest kind of beauty, but I doubt the average. I have
noticed in country places a greater average amount of good looks among
the middle classes, and besides we unavoidably combine in our idea of
beauty, intellectual expression, and refinement of manner, which often
makes the l