The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

Title page of the first edition of The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
Author	Charles Darwin
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Subject	Sexual selection Evolutionary biology
Publisher	John Murray
Publication date	24 February 1871
Media type	Print (hardback)

The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex is a book by English

to society.

Publication

As Darwin wrote, he sent chapters to his daughter

Within three weeks of publication a reprint had been ordered, and 4,500 copies were in print by the end of March 1871, netting Darwin almost £1,500.[2] Darwin's name created demand for the book, but the ideas were old news. "Everybody is talking about it without being shocked," which he found "proof of the increasing liberality of England".^{[note 1]}

Editions and reprints

Darwin and some of his children edited many of the large number of revised editions, some extensively. In late 1873, Darwin tackled a new edition of the Descent of Man. Initially, he offered Wallace the work of assisting him, but, when Emma found out, she had the task given to their son George, so Darwin had to write apologetically to Wallace. Huxley assisted with an update on ape-brain inheritance, which Huxley thought "pounds the enemy into a jelly... though none but anatomists" would know it. The manuscript was completed in April 1874 and published on 13 November that year. This has been the edition most commonly reprinted after Darwin's death and to the present day.

Content

Part I: The evolution of man

Evolution of physical traits

In the introduction to Descent, Darwin lays out the purpose of his text:

"The sole object of this work is to consider, firstly, whether man, like every other species, is descended from some pre-existing form; secondly, the manner of his development; and thirdly, the value of the differences between the so-called races of man."

Darwin's approach to arguing for the evolution of human beings is to outline how similar human beings are to other animals. He begins by using

" that presumably were useful in one of man's "pre-existing" forms. He then moves on to argue for the similarity of mental characteristics.

Evolution of mental traits

Based on the work of his cousin, Francis Galton, Darwin asserts that human character traits and mental characteristics are inherited in the same way as physical characteristics, and argues against the mind/body distinction for the purposes of evolutionary theory. From this Darwin then provides evidence for similar mental powers and characteristics in certain animals, focusing especially on apes, monkeys, and dogs for his analogies for love, cleverness, religion, kindness, and altruism. He concludes on this point that "Nevertheless the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind."^[5] He additionally turns to the behaviour of "savages" to show how many aspects of Victorian England's society can be seen in more primitive forms.

In particular, Darwin argues that even moral and social instincts are evolved, comparing religion in man to fetishism in "savages" and his dog's inability to tell whether a wind-blown parasol was alive or not. Darwin also argues that all civilisations had risen out of barbarism, and that he did not think that barbarism is a "fall from grace" as many commentators of his time had asserted.

Natural selection and civilised society

In this section of the book, Darwin also turns to the questions of what after his death would be known as social Darwinism and eugenics. Darwin notes that, as had been discussed by Alfred Russel Wallace and Galton, natural selection seemed to no longer act upon civilised communities in the way it did upon other animals:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. The aid we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected. (Chapter 5)^[6]

Darwin felt that these urges towards helping the "weak members" was part of our evolved instinct of sympathy, and concluded that "nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature". As such, '"we must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind". Darwin did feel that the "savage races" of man would be subverted by the "civilised races" at some point in the near future, as stated in the human races section below.^[7] He did show a certain disdain for "savages", professing that he felt more akin to certain altruistic tendencies in monkeys than he did to "a savage who delights to torture his enemies". However, Darwin is not advocating genocide, but clinically predicting, by analogy to the ways that "more fit" varieties in a species displace other varieties, the likelihood that indigenous peoples will eventually die out from their contact with "civilization", or become absorbed into it completely.^[8][9]

His political opinions (and Galton's as well) were strongly inclined against the coercive, authoritarian forms of eugenics that became so prominent in the 20th century.

, but rather further education on the genetic aspects of reproduction, encouraging couples to make better choices for their wellbeing.

For each tendency of society to produce negative selections, Darwin also saw the possibility of society to itself check these problems, but also noted that with his theory "progress is no invariable rule." Towards the end of Descent of Man, Darwin said that he believed man would "sink into indolence" if severe struggle was not continuous, and thought that "there should be open competition for all men; and the most able should not be prevented by laws or customs from succeeding best and rearing the largest number of offspring", but also noted that he thought that the moral qualities of man were advanced much more by habit, reason, learning, and religion than by natural selection. The question plagued him until the end of his life, and he never concluded fully one way or the other about it.

On the Races of Man

In the first chapters of the book, Darwin argued that there is no fundamental gap between humans and other animals in intellectual and moral faculties as well as anatomy. Retreating from his egalitarian ideas of the 1830s, he ranked life on a hierarchic scale which he extended to human races on the basis of anthropology published since 1860: human prehistory outlined by John Lubbock and Edward Burnett Tylor combined archaeology and studies of modern indigenous peoples to show progressive evolution from Stone Age to steam age; the human mind as the same in all cultures but with modern "primitive" peoples giving insight into prehistoric ways of life. Darwin did not support their view that progress was inevitable, but he shared their belief in human unity and held the common attitude that male European liberalism and civilisation had progressed further in morality and intellect than "savage" peoples.^[10][11]

He attributed the "great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies" to extinction, and as spreading civilisation wiped out wildlife and native human cultures, the gap would widen to somewhere "between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla." While there "can be no doubt that the difference between the mind of the lowest man and that of the highest animal is immense", the "difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, is certainly one of degree and not of kind."^[12][13] At the same time, all human races had many mental similarities, and early artefacts showing shared culture were evidence of evolution through common descent from an ancestral species which was likely to have been fully human.^[14][15]

Introducing chapter seven ("On the Races of Man"), Darwin wrote: "It is not my intention here to describe the several so-called races of men; but to inquire what is the value of the differences between them under a

Darwin then presented the stronger evidence that human races are all the same species, noting that when races mixed together, they intercrossed beyond the "usual test of specific distinctness"[21] and that characteristics identifying races were highly variable.^[22] He put great weight on the point that races graduate into each other, writing "But the most weighty of all the arguments against treating the races of man as distinct species, is that they graduate into each other, independently in many cases, as far as we can judge, of their having intercrossed",^[23] and concluded that the stronger evidence was that they were not different species.^[24]

This conclusion on human unity was supported by monogenism, including John Bachman's evidence that intercrossed human races were fully fertile. Proponents of polygenism opposed unity, but the gradual transition from one race to another confused them when they tried to decide how many human races should count as species: Louis Agassiz said eight, but Morton said twenty-two.^[25][23] Darwin commented that the "question whether mankind consists of one or several species has of late years been much agitated by anthropologists, who are divided into two schools of monogenists and polygenists." The latter had to "look at species either as separate creations or as in some manner distinct entities" but those accepting evolution "will feel no doubt that all the races of man are descended from a single primitive stock". Although races differed considerably, they also shared so many features "that it is extremely improbable that they should have been independently acquired by aboriginally distinct species or races." He drew on his memories of Jemmy Button and John Edmonstone to emphasise "the numerous points of mental similarity between the most distinct races of man. The American aborigines, Negroes and Europeans differ as much from each other in mind as any three races that can be named; yet I was incessantly struck, whilst living with the Fuegians on board the Beagle, with the many little traits of character, shewing how similar their minds were to ours; and so it was with a full-blooded negro with whom I happened once to be intimate."^[26][27] Darwin concluded that "when the principles of evolution are generally accepted, as they surely will be before long, the dispute between the monogenists and the polygenists will die a silent and unobserved death."^[28][29]

Darwin rejected both the idea that races had been separately created, and the concept that races had evolved in parallel from separate ancestral species of apes.^[30] He reviewed possible explanations of divergence into racial differences such as adaptations to different climates and habitats, but found inadequate evidence to support them, and proposed that the most likely cause was sexual selection,^[31] a subject to which he devoted the greater part of the book, as described in the following section.

Part II and III: Sexual selection

peacock

who she believed had the most beautiful plumage.

Part II of the book begins with a chapter outlining the basic principles of sexual selection, followed by a detailed review of many different taxa of the kingdom

Darwin's theories of evolution by natural selection were used to try to show women's place in society was the result of nature.^[33] One of the first women to critique Darwin, Antoinette Brown Blackwell published The Sexes Throughout Nature in 1875.^[34] She was aware she would be considered presumptuous for criticising evolutionary theory but wrote that "disadvantages under which we [women] are placed...will never be lessened by waiting".^[35] Blackwell's book answered Darwin and Herbert Spencer, who she thought were the two most influential living men.^[36] She wrote of "defrauded womanhood" and her fears that "the human race, forever retarding its own advancement...could not recognize and promote a genuine, broad, and healthful equilibrium of the sexes".^[37]

In the Descent of Man, Darwin wrote that by choosing tools and weapons over the years, "man has ultimately become superior to woman",^[38] but Blackwell's argument for women's equality went largely ignored until the 1970s when feminist scientists and historians began to explore Darwin.^[39] As recently as 2004, Griet Vandermassen, aligned with other Darwinian feminists of the 1990s and early 2000s (decade), wrote that a unifying theory of human nature should include sexual selection.^[34] But then the "opposite ongoing integration" was promoted by another faction as an alternative in 2007.^[40] Nonetheless, Darwin's explanation of sexual selection continues to receive support from both social and biological scientists as "the best explanation to date".^[41]

Apparently non-adaptive features

In Darwin's view, anything that could be expected to have some adaptive feature could be explained easily with his theory of natural selection. In On the Origin of Species, Darwin wrote that to use natural selection to explain something as complicated as a human eye, "with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration" might at first appear "absurd in the highest possible degree," but nevertheless, if "numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist", then it seemed quite possible to account for within his theory.

peacock

's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!"

More difficult for Darwin were highly evolved and complicated features that conveyed apparently no adaptive advantage to the organism. Writing to colleague Asa Gray in 1860, Darwin commented that he remembered well a "time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over, but I have got over this stage of the complaint, & now small trifling particulars of structure often make me very uncomfortable. The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!"^[42] Why should a bird like the peacock develop such an elaborate tail, which seemed at best to be a hindrance in its "struggle for existence"? To answer the question, Darwin had introduced in the Origin the theory of sexual selection, which outlined how different characteristics could be selected for if they conveyed a reproductive advantage to the individual. In this theory, male animals in particular showed heritable features acquired by sexual selection, such as "weapons" with which to fight over females with other males, or beautiful plumage with which to woo the female animals. Much of Descent is devoted to providing evidence for sexual selection in nature, which he also ties into the development of aesthetic instincts in human beings, as well as the differences in coloration between the human races.^[43]

Darwin had developed his ideas about sexual selection for this reason since at least the 1850s, and had originally intended to include a long section on the theory in his large, unpublished book on species. When it came to writing Origin (his "abstract" of the larger book), though, he did not feel he had sufficient space to engage in sexual selection to any strong degree, and included only three paragraphs devoted to the subject. Darwin considered sexual selection to be as much of a theoretical contribution of his as was his natural selection, and a substantial amount of Descent is devoted exclusively to this topic.

Darwin's background issues and concerns

It was Darwin's second book on evolutionary theory, following his 1859 work,

and human expression, which became The Descent of Man.

The book is a response to various debates of Darwin's time far more wide-ranging than the questions he raised in Origin. It is often erroneously assumed that the book was controversial because it was the first to outline the idea of human evolution and

Duke of Argyll in his book The Reign of Law (1868).^[44]

Human faculties

The major sticking point for many in the question of human evolution was whether human mental faculties could have possibly been evolved. The gap between humans and even the smartest ape seemed too large, even for those who were sympathetic to Darwin's basic theory.

spiritualism

than it did the natural world. Darwin was deeply distressed by Wallace's change of heart, and much of the Descent of Man is in response to opinions put forth by Wallace. Darwin focuses less on the question of whether humans evolved than he does on showing that each of the human faculties considered to be so far beyond those of beasts—such as moral reasoning, sympathy for others, beauty, and music—can be seen in kind (if not degree) in other animal species (usually apes and dogs).

Human races

Darwin was a long-time abolitionist who had been horrified by slavery when he first came into contact with it in Brazil while touring the world on the Beagle voyage many years before (slavery had been illegal in the British Empire since 1833).^{[45][page needed][46]} Darwin also was perplexed by the "savage races" he saw in South America at Tierra del Fuego, which he saw as evidence of man's more primitive state of civilisation. During his years in London, his private notebooks were riddled with speculations and thoughts on the nature of the human races, many decades before he published Origin and Descent.

When making his case that human races were all closely related and that the apparent gap between humans and other animals was due to closely related forms being extinct, Darwin drew on his experiences on the voyage showing that "savages" were being wiped out by "civilized" peoples.^[8] When Darwin referred to "civilised races" he was almost always describing European cultures, and apparently drew no clear distinction between biological races and cultural races in humans. Few made that distinction at the time, an exception being Alfred Russel Wallace.^[8]

Social implications of Darwinism

Since the publication of Origin, a wide variety of opinions had been put forward on whether the theory had implications towards human society. One of these, later known as

Lamarckian

evolutionist; hence, fitness could be acquired in a single generation and thus in no way did "survival of the fittest" as a tenet of Darwinian evolution predate it.

Another of these interpretations, later known as

welfare and insane asylums

were allowing "inferior" humans to survive and reproduce at levels faster than the more "superior" humans in respectable society, and if corrections were not soon taken, society would be awash with "inferiors." Darwin read his cousin's work with interest, and devoted sections of Descent of Man to discussion of Galton's theories. Neither Galton nor Darwin, though, advocated any eugenic policies such as those undertaken in the early 20th century, as government coercion of any form was very much against their political opinions.

Sexual selection

Darwin's views on sexual selection were opposed strongly by his co-discoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, though much of his "debate" with Darwin took place after Darwin's death. Wallace argued against sexual selection, saying that the male-male competition aspects were simply forms of natural selection, and that the notion of female mate choice was attributing the ability to judge standards of beauty to animals far too cognitively undeveloped to be capable of aesthetic feeling (such as beetles).^[43]

Wallace also argued that Darwin too much favoured the bright colours of the male peacock as adaptive without realising that the "drab"

adaptationist

" agenda in asserting that the highly intricate and developed forms such as a peacock's tail resulted by sheer "physiological processes" that were somehow not at all subjected to adaptation.

Apart from Wallace, a number of scholars considered the role of sexual selection in human evolution controversial. Darwin was accused of looking at the evolution of early human ancestors through the moral lens of the 19th century Victorian society.

predators and conspecific competitors). According to Jordania, most of these warning displays were incorrectly attributed to the forces of sexual selection.^[48]

While debates on the subject continued, in January 1871 Darwin started on another book, using leftover material on emotional expressions, which became The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals.

In recent years controversy also involved the peacock tail, the most famous symbol of the principle of sexual selection. A seven-year Japanese study of free-ranging peafowl came to the conclusion that female peafowl do not select mates merely on the basis of their trains. Mariko Takahashi found no evidence that peahens expressed any preference for peacocks with more elaborate trains, such as trains having more ocelli, a more symmetrical arrangement or a greater length.

aposematic) display to intimidate predators and rivals.^[51]

Effect on society

In January 1871,

Thomas Huxley's former disciple, the anatomist St. George Mivart, had published On the Genesis of Species as a critique of natural selection. In an anonymous Quarterly Review article, he claimed that the Descent of Man would unsettle "our half educated classes" and talked of people doing as they pleased, breaking laws and customs.^[52]

An infuriated Darwin guessed that Mivart was the author and, thinking "I shall soon be viewed as the most despicable of men", looked for an ally. In September, Huxley wrote a cutting review of Mivart's book and article and a relieved Darwin told him "How you do smash Mivart's theology... He may write his worst & he will never mortify me again". As 1872 began, Mivart politely inflamed the argument again, writing "wishing you very sincerely a happy new year" while wanting a disclaimer of the "fundamental intellectual errors" in the Descent of Man. This time, Darwin ended the correspondence.

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2008)

References

Notes

1. ^ See this 1871 book review in § External links.

Citations

1. ^ Freeman 1977, Darwin Online: The Descent of Man
2. ^ Moore & Desmond 2004, p. li.
3. ^ "Picture of Introduction". Darwin Online.
4. ISBN 978-0-631-23020-5
5. ISBN 978-1-108-00509-8
   .
6. ^ Darwin, Charles (1 August 2000). The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Retrieved 6 April 2018 – via Project Gutenberg.
7. ^ Darwin 1871, pp. 200–201, Vol. 1
8. ^ ^{a b c} Quote Mine Project: Assorted Quotes, TalkOrigins Archive, retrieved 29 December 2007
9. ^ ^{a b} Paul 2003, p. 223: "...all the concrete suggestions for encouraging reproduction of the valuable members of society or discouraging it by the undesirable members seemed to Darwin...morally suspect."
10. ^ Desmond & Moore 2009, pp. 364–367.
11. ^ Bowler 1996, pp. 191–192.
12. ISBN 978-1-78100-756-3
    .
13. ^ Darwin 1871, pp. 104–105, 201–202, Vol. 1.
14. ^ Desmond & Moore 2009, p. 367.
15. ^ Darwin 1871, p. 388, Vol. 2, quote: "since he attained to the rank of manhood, he has diverged into distinct races … . Some of these, for instance the Negro and European, are so distinct that, if specimens had been brought to a naturalist without any further information, they would undoubtedly have been considered by him as good and true species. Nevertheless all the races agree in so many unimportant details of structure and in so many mental peculiarities, that these can be accounted for only through inheritance from a common progenitor; and a progenitor thus characterised would probably have deserved to rank as man. It must not be supposed that the divergence of each race from the other races, and of all the races from a common stock, can be traced back to any one pair of progenitors."
16. ^ Darwin 1871, p. 214, Vol. 1.
17. ^ Radick 2013, pp. 175–176.
18. ^ Darwin 1871, p. 217, Vol. 1, quote: "We will first consider the arguments which may be advanced in favour of classing the races of man as distinct species, and then those on the other side."
19. ^ Darwin 1871, pp. 218–219, Vol. 1.
20. ^ Radick 2013, pp. 173, 176
    Darwin 1871, pp. 219–220, Vol. 1
    Darwin 1871, p. 224, Vol. 1, quote: "We have now seen that a naturalist might feel himself fully justified in ranking the races of man as distinct species; for he has found that they are distinguished by many differences in structure and constitution, some being of importance."
21. ^ Darwin 1871, p. 225, Vol. 1.
22. ^ Darwin 1871, p. 225, Vol. 1, quote: "… the distinctive characters of every race of man were highly variable. … It may be doubted whether any character can be named which is distinctive of a race and is constant."
23. ^ ^{a b} Darwin 1871, p. 226, Vol. 1
24. ^ Radick 2013, p. 176
    Ghiselin 2009, p. 35
25. ^ Desmond & Moore 2009, pp. 374–375.
26. ^ Desmond & Moore 2009, p. 375.
27. ^ Darwin 1871, pp. 228–232, Vol. 1.
28. ^ Desmond & Moore 2009, p. 376.
29. ^ Darwin 1871, p. 236, Vol. 1.
30. ^ Bowler 1996, pp. 189–190.
31. ^ Stamos 2008, p. 134
    Ghiselin 2009, p. 35
    Darwin 1871, pp. 248–250, Vol. 1, quote: "We have thus far been baffled in all our attempts to account for the differences between the races of man, but there remains one important agency, namely Sexual Selection, which appears to have acted as powerfully on man, as on many other animals."
32. ISBN 978-0-670-02053-9
33. ^ Bowler & Morus 2005, p. 503
34. ^
    S2CID 145221350
35. ^ Blackwell 1976, p. 22
36. ^ Blackwell 1976, p. 234
37. ^ Blackwell 1976, pp. 117–118
38. ^ Darwin, Descent of Man 2: pp. 327–328
39. ISBN 978-0-8135-1490-1
40. S2CID 51915932
41. ^ Fedigan 1992, p. 273
42. ^ Letter 2743 – Darwin, C. R. to Gray, Asa, 3 April (1860), Darwin Correspondence Project
43. ^ ^{a b} Jabr, Ferris (9 January 2019). "How Beauty Is Making Scientists Rethink Evolution – The extravagant splendor of the animal kingdom can't be explained by natural selection alone – so how did it come to be?". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 January 2019.
44. S2CID 4088542
    , chapter 5: "Creation".
45. ^ Desmond & Moore 2009.
46. ^ "Slavery Abolition Act 1833; Section XII". 28 August 1833. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
47. ^ Roughgarden, Joan (2004). Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender and Sexuality in Nature and People. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
48. Why do People Sing? Music in Human Evolution
    . Logos, 2011:186–196.
49. ^ Takahashi M et al. (2008). Anim . Behav., 75: 1209–1219.
50. ^ Loyau A et al. (2008). Anim. Behav., 76; e5–e9.
51. Why do People Sing? Music in Human Evolution
    . Logos. pp. 192–196.
52. ^ "Darwin Online".

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• Bowler, Peter J.; Morus, Iwan Rhys (2005). Making Modern Science. The University of Chicago Press.
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• Brooks, Ross (2021). "Darwin's Closet: The Queer Sides of The Descent of Man (1871)". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 191 (2): 323–346.
  doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaa175
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• ISBN 978-0-521-45765-1
  . – somewhat ahistorical treatment of the Darwin–Wallace debate on sexual selection.
• ISBN 978-0-8014-2085-6
  . Retrieved 18 June 2009.
• Darwin, Charles (1871b). The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Vol. 2 (1st ed.). London: John Murray.
• Desmond, Adrian; Moore, James (2009). Darwin's sacred cause : race, slavery and the quest for human origins. London: Allen Lane.
  ISBN 978-1-84614-035-8
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• ISBN 978-0-226-23948-4
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• Freeman, R. B. (1977), The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist, Folkestone: Wm Dawson & Sons Ltd,
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• Ghiselin, Michael T. (2009), Darwin: A Reader's Guide, Occasional Papers of the California Academy of Sciences, retrieved 18 April 2016
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• Stamos, David N. (2008). Evolution and the Big Questions: Sex, Race, Religion, and Other Matters.
• An 1871 book review of Descent of Man, which appeared in the Annual Register. Archived from the original on 14 August 2006.

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The Descent of Man

Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.

• The Descent of Man (Volume 1) and (Volume 2) (from The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online)

• The Descent of Man at Project Gutenberg
• The Descent of Man public domain audiobook at LibriVox