The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (Annotated)

Appleton and company, Bound in original brick red cloth. Good binding and cover. Spine rebacked on modern red cloth, rehinged, soiling to spine, wear to edges. During many years it has seemed to me highly probable that sexual selection has played an important part in differentiating the races of man; but in my 'Origin of Species' first edition, p. When I came to apply this view to man, I found it indispensable to treat the whole subject in full detail. Consequently the second part of the present work, treating of sexual selection, has extended to an inordinate length, compared with the first part; but this could not be avoided"--Introduction.

This is an oversized or heavy book, that requires additional postage for international delivery outside the US. Second edition, revised and augmented.

The Descent Of Man, and Selection In Relation To Sex by Darwin, Charles

Publisher's green cloth with gilt lettering to spine. Small bookseller's ticket to front pastedown. Hinges near tender in Vol. I, Spine cloth chipped at extremities, cut to the cloth on the spine just below the author's name. Some toning to the leaves. Darwin's most famous work after On The Origin of Species, and the one in which the word evolution first appears--on page 2 of the first volume--before its appearance in the sixth edition of On The Origin of Species the following year.

Second Life Books Inc Published: John Murray [through ], Original publisher's green pebbled cloth, covers paneled in blind, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, patterned end papers.

The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex

A truly superb, unopened copy, virtually pristine, save for brown-spotting to paste downs and blanks and one bumped corner. Binding tight, gilt bright, contents clean, crisp and unmarked. Second Edition Thirty-First Thousand , revised and augmented, of Darwin's second great book on evolutionary theory first published in , in two volumes, and first to contain the word "evolution," preceding its appearance in the sixth edition of The Origin of Species the following year. Darwin had skirted the issue of man in the Origin; his readers had to wait for the Descent to read unequivocally that "man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped.

Huxley on the brains of man and apes. It consists of three parts: With few exceptions always identified , we only stock books in exceptional condition, carefully preserved in archival, removable polypropylene sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Fine Editions Ltd Published: Second edition, 13th thousand. Original dark green cloth, spine gilt.

Mild patchiness to the spine along with a gentle central vertical crease, one gathering slightly proud though the binding remains sound, very good overall. Bow Windows Bookshop Published: Darwin, Charles , xvi pages, contains 78 black and white steel-engraved figures. Second Edition, 13th thousand. The 2nd edition, revised and Augmented with illustrations. Second Edition, revised and augmented. Complete in one volume. Illustrated with numerous figures and drawings throughout the text.

An especially bright and clean copy in the original cloth, internally very fine indeed, the binding well preserved. An extremely well preserved copy of this edition, essentially a very early reprint of the second edition. This printing was completely overlooked by Freeman.

Any nineteenth century printing of this work is hard to find in such nice condition, most copies encountered are very well used. This copy appears all but unread and is uncommonly fresh in every regard. The last chapter is about sexual selection in relation to man, and ends with his famous statement about man's lowly origin. The Second Edition thirteenth thousand revised and augmented.

Bound in original green cloth, ruled in blind, with the spine lettered and ornamented in gilt. Previous owner's name to inside front board, front free endpaper torn out, one gathering standing proud. Top of spine a bit frayed. Board edges slightly rubbed. London, John Murray, Slight rubbing to bindings, a few handling marks to covers, inner paper hinges cracked, a few turning creases to top corners, otherwise a very good set. Hard To Find Books. Worldcat locates no copies. Introduction states 2nd edition and is dated and states 2nd edition but it is bylined Kent England and not USA.

Publisher's brown cloth with modest rubbing to extremities. Spotting to frontis, contents generally VG. London John Murray, Second edition, "Revised and Augmented", twenty-first thousand. Contemporary half calf over marbled boards, spine with raised bands, gilt lettered black label with another lettered direct below, endpapers and all edges marbled.

Second edition, 29th thousand, 8vo, xvi, , 1 pp. Recent green quarter calf, marbled sides, maroon spine label, an excellent copy. Ships with Tracking Number! Buy with confidence, excellent customer service! D Appleton and Company, Appleton and Company, two volume set, brown cloth bindings with black decorative border and gilt lettering on spines, light foxing spots on fore-edges, hinges and bindings are tight, illustrated with engravings, index, and pages. Stone Soup Books Published: Finely bound by MacMillan and Bowes of Cambridge in dark green full calf with gilt back, marbled edges and endpapers.

Very light foxing, binding a little marked, pleasingly sunned to back-strip. Originally issued in a mid-green cloth, it is unusual to find this edition in a vintage leather binding. Adrian Harrington Rare Books. John Murray, Second edition seventeenth thousand , revised and augmented. Publisher's green cloth, ruled in blind to boards and stamped in gilt to spine, dark brown coated endpapers. A very good copy, some rubbing to extremities and endpapers, spine slightly shaken, foxing to first few leaves, a touch of additional spotting scattered throughout, toning to text block edges, bookplate of the "Biological Book Club" to front pastedown, contemporary ownership signature of the British physician and scientist H.

Seddon to verso of front free endpaper. Overall, a handsome, sturdy copy that presents very well in the original cloth. This copy bears the ownership signature of H. Seddon, a British physician who published several papers in the late 19th and early 20th century related to his work in hospitals..

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Previous owner's initials obscured by pencil to half-title. Second edition revised and augmented , thirty-first thousand. There is a touch of wear to the cloth at the head and foot of the spine and along the bottom cloth edges, one endpaper each from the front and rear endpapers is browned, the forest-green cloth binding and the text are bright and clean; a tight copy in near fine condition.. Publisher's original forest-green cloth with spine lettered in gilt and with ornate gilt decorations at the top and bottom of the spine, the front and rear cloth-covered boards have blind-stamped border decorations, patterned endpapers, 8vo.

This is Freeman , the thirty-first thousandth of the revised and augmented second edition. In this work, Darwin first applies the principles of evolution developed in the 'Origin of Species," to the evolution of humankind. This is the first book that treats human evolution in a systematic and scientific way.

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. 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.

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. 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 Animalia which surveys various classes such as molluscs and crustaceans.

The tenth and eleventh chapters are both devoted to insects , the latter specifically focusing on the order Lepidoptera , the butterflies and moths. The remainder of the book shifts to the vertebrates , beginning with cold blooded vertebrates fishes , amphibians and reptiles followed by four chapters on birds.

Two chapters on mammals precede those on humans. Darwin explained sexual selection as a combination of " female choosiness " and "direct competition between males". Darwin's theories of evolution by natural selection were used to try to show women's place in society was the result of nature. In the Descent of Man , Darwin wrote that by choosing tools and weapons over the years, "man has ultimately become superior to woman" [37] but Blackwell's argument for women's equality went largely ignored until the s when feminist scientists and historians began to explore Darwin.

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.

More difficult for Darwin were highly evolved and complicated features that conveyed apparently no adaptive advantage to the organism. The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick! 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. Darwin had developed his ideas about sexual selection for this reason since at least the s, 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. It was Darwin's second book on evolutionary theory, following his work, On the Origin of Species , in which he explored the concept of natural selection and which had been met with a firestorm of controversy in reaction to Darwin's theory.

A single line in this first work hinted at such a conclusion: When writing The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication in , Darwin intended to include a chapter including man in his theory, but the book became too big and he decided to write a separate "short essay" on ape ancestry, sexual selection 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 common descent. Coming out so late into that particular debate, while it was clearly Darwin's intent to weigh in on this question, his goal was to approach it through a specific theoretical lens sexual selection , which other commentators at the period had not discussed, and consider the evolution of morality and religion. The theory of sexual selection was also needed to counter the argument that beauty with no obvious utility, such as exotic birds' plumage, proved divine design, which had been put strongly by the Duke of Argyll in his book The Reign of Law 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. Alfred Russel Wallace , the co-discoverer of evolution by natural selection , believed that the human mind was too complex to have evolved gradually, and began over time to subscribe to a theory of evolution that took more from 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.

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 [43]. 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.

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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, [7] 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. In his book Why Freud Was Wrong , Richard Webster argued that The Descent of Man was influenced by racist prejudice, and that in it Darwin looked forward to the extermination of what he considered to be savage races. 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 Social Darwinism , had been put forward by Herbert Spencer before publication of Origin , and argued that society would naturally sort itself out, and that the more "fit" individuals would rise to positions of higher prominence, while the less "fit" would succumb to poverty and disease.

He alleged that government-run social programmes and charity hinder the "natural" stratification of the populace, and first introduced the phrase " survival of the fittest " in Spencer was primarily a Lamarckian evolutionist; hence, fitness could be acquired in a single generation and that in no way did "survival of the fittest" as a tenet of Darwinian evolution predate it. Another of these interpretations, later known as eugenics , was put forth by Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton , in and Galton argued that just as physical traits were clearly inherited among generations of people, so could be said for mental qualities genius and talent.

Galton argued that social mores needed to change so that heredity was a conscious decision, to avoid over-breeding by "less fit" members of society and the under-breeding of the "more fit" ones. In Galton's view, social institutions such 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.

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. 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. Wallace also argued that Darwin too much favoured the bright colours of the male peacock as adaptive without realising that the "drab" peahen 's coloration is itself adaptive, as camouflage.

Wallace more speculatively argued that the bright colours and long tails of the peacock were not adaptive in any way, and that bright coloration could result from non-adaptive physiological development for example, the internal organs of animals, not being subject to a visual form of natural selection, come in a wide variety of bright colours. This has been questioned by later scholars as quite a stretch for Wallace, who in this particular instance abandoned his normally strict " 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. Your Web browser is not enabled for JavaScript. Some features of WorldCat will not be available. Create lists, bibliographies and reviews: Search WorldCat Find items in libraries near you. Advanced Search Find a Library. Your list has reached the maximum number of items. Please create a new list with a new name; move some items to a new or existing list; or delete some items.

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