noticed to me your "high-minded" conduct on this head.

But now for your Man paper, about which I should like to write more than I
can. The great leading idea is quite new to me--viz. that during late ages
the mind will have been modified more than the body; yet I had got as far
as to see with you, that the struggle between the races of man depended
entirely on intellectual and moral qualities. The latter part of the paper
I can designate only as grand and most eloquently done. I have shown your
paper to two or three persons who have been here, and they have been
equally struck with it. I am not sure that I go with you on all minor
points: when reading Sir G. Grey's account of the constant battles of
Australian savages, I remember thinking that Natural Selection would come
in, and likewise with the Esquimaux, with whom the art of fishing and
managing canoes is said to be hereditary. I rather differ on the rank,
under a classificatory point of view, which you assign to man; I do not
think any character simply in excess ought ever to be used for the higher
divisions. Ants would not be separated from other hymenopterous insects,
however high the instinct of the one, and however low the instincts of the
other. With respect to the differences of race, a conjecture has occurred
to me that much may be due to the correlation of complexion (and
consequently hair) with constitution. Assume that a dusky individual best
escaped miasma, and you will readily see what I mean. I persuaded the
Director-General of the Medical Department of the Army to send printed
forms to the surgeons of all regiments in tropical countries to ascertain
this point, but I daresay I shall never get any returns. Secondly, I
suspect that a sort of sexual selection has been the most powerful means of
changing the races of man. I can show that the different races have a
widely different standard of beauty. Among savages the most powerful men
will have the pick of the women, and they will generally leave the most
descendants. I have collected a few notes on man, but I do not suppose I