DARWIN Charles The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. Eighth thousand.

Freeman, F-940.

Eights-thousand, published in the year of the first, with all errata corrected from previous issues.

In the introduction Darwin lays out the purpose of this book : “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” (p. 2-3).

“In Descent, Darwin details a theory that he calls “sexual selection”— the idea that, in many species, males battle other males for access to females, while in other species females choose the biggest or most attractive males to bond with. The male-combat theory would explain, for example, the development of a bull’s horns, or a moose’s antlers, while the quintessential example of “female choice” is seen in peahens, which, Darwin argued, prefer to mate with peacocks having the biggest, most colorful tails. For Darwin, sexual selection was just as important as natural selection, which he had outlined in Origin — the idea that organisms with favorable traits are more likely to reproduce, thus passing on those traits to their offspring. Both mechanisms helped to explain how species evolved over time” (David Falk, in Smithsonian Magazine).

A good copy.

Provenance : John Errington de la Croix (his purchase note on front fly-leaf, dated Alger, juin 1872). John Errington de la Croix (1848-1905) was French geologist and linguist, author of a French-Malaisian dictionary.