Three Stages.

The stages then are but three—mental states, specialisa­tion of small muscular bundles from an existing simple sheet of muscle, and disuse of the remaining portions, and in this small but highly significant field we see structures created independently of will as servants of the brain, and without any survival-value in their earliest stages. It is more than likely no monkey, ape, or early man whose face was covered with thick hair from his eyes downwards, ever saved his life or gained a better mate by reason of the subtle modifica­tion of a tiny muscle which was proceeding pari passu with the growing complexity of his convolutions and their manifested emotions. This is not to claim that a more modern man or woman would not find sexual selection of value by reason of his or her more pleasing or commanding facial expression. That the initiative of these alluring modifications was simple and Lamarckian cannot be gainsaid, whatever the fruit of the finished process may be to-day. We know in our own experience that many a handsome person with good features and little expression is often unsuccessful in the matrimonial market, when another with defective features and a fine, delicate, attractive expression takes the prize. So the early story of the formation of muscles of expression is seen to be a page in the evolution of the indifferent.