bathing; and by looking to the published table, it is manifest at a
glance that there is but little, if any, difference between the white
and the black races in this respect. It is, however, certain that
negroes in their native and much hotter land of Africa, have remarkably
smooth bodies. It should be particularly observed, that both pure
blacks and mulattoes were included in the above enumeration; and this
is an unfortunate circumstance, as in accordance with a principle, the
truth of which I have elsewhere proved, crossed races of man would be
eminently liable to revert to the primordial hairy character of their
early ape-like progenitors.), and possibly with the Ainos, who inhabit
the northern islands of the Japan archipelago. But the laws of
inheritance are so complex that we can seldom understand their action.
If the greater hairiness of certain races be the result of reversion,
unchecked by any form of selection, its extreme variability, even
within the limits of the same race, ceases to be remarkable. (24.
Hardly any view advanced in this work has met with so much disfavour
(see for instance, Sprengel, Die Fortschritte des Darwinismus, 1874,
p. 80) as the above explanation of the loss of hair in mankind through
sexual selection; but none of the opposed arguments seem to me of much
weight, in comparison with the facts shewing that the nudity of the
skin is to a certain extent a secondary sexual character in man and in
some of the Quadrumana.)
With respect to the beard in man, if we turn to our best guide, the
Quadrumana, we find beards equally developed in both sexes of many
species, but in some, either confined to the males, or more developed
in them than in the females. From this fact and from the curious
arrangement, as well as the bright colours of the hair about the heads
of many monkeys, it is highly probable, as before explained, that the
males first acquired their beards through sexual selection as an
ornament, transmitting them in most cases, equally or nearly so, to
their offspring of both sexes. We know from Eschricht (25. Ueber die
Richtung der Haare am Menschlichen Korper, in Muller s Archiv. fur
Anat. und Phys. 1837, s. 40.) that with mankind the female as well as
the male foetus is furnished with much hair on the face, especially
round the mouth; and this indicates that we are descended from
progenitors of whom both sexes were bearded. It appears therefore at
first sight probable that man has retained his beard from a very early
period, whilst woman lost her beard at the same time that her body
became almost completely divested of hair. Even the colour of our
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