The Descent of Man

should retain the same habit; and they would
approach the female as closely as possible, in
order not to risk the loss of the fertilising element
in a long passage of it through the water.
With some few of the lower animals, the females
alone are fixed, and the males of these must
be the seekers. But it is difficult to understand
why the males of species, of which the progenitors
were primordially free, should invariably
have acquired the habit of approaching the
females, instead of being approached by them.
But in all cases, in order that the males should
seek efficiently, it would be necessary that they
should be endowed with strong passions; and
the acquirement of such passions would naturally
follow from the more eager leaving a larger
number of offspring than the less eager.
The great eagerness of the males has thus indirectly
led to their much more frequently developing
secondary sexual characters than the
females. But the development of such charac-