So2 The Descent of Man. Part III. 



negroes, who have been reared during several generations in 

 the United States, 23 and possibly with the Ainos, who inhabit 

 the northern islands of the Japan archipelago. But the laws of 

 inheritance are so complex than 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 



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 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 beards seems 

 to have been inherited from an ape-like progenitor ; for when 



23 'Investigations into Military races of man would be eminent!)'' 



and Anthropological Statistics of liable to revert to the primordial 



American Soldiers,' by B. A. Gould, hairy character of their early ape- 



1869 ; p. 568 : — Observations were like progenitors, 



carefully made on the hairiness of 24 Hardly any view advanced in 



2129 black and coloured soldiers, this work has met with so much 



whilst they were batniug ; and by disfavour (see for instance, Spengel, 



looking to the published table, " it ' Die Fortschritte des Darwinism us,' 



" is manifest at a glance that there 1874, p. 80) as the above explana- 



"is but little, if any, difference be- tion of the loss of hair in mankind 



" tween the white and the black through sexual selection ; but none 



" races in this respect." It is, how- of the opposed arguments seem to 



ever, certain that negroes in their na- me of much weight, in comparison 



tive and much hotter land of Africa, with the facts shewing that, the 



have remarkably smooth bodies. It nudity of the skin is to a certain 



should be particularly observed, extent a secondary sexual charactei 



that both pure blacks and mu- in man and in some of the Quad- 



lafctoes were included .n the above rumana. 



snumeration ; and this is an unfor- " ' Ueber die Richtung der 



tunatc circumstance, as m accordance Haare am Menschlichen Korper,' 



with a principle, the truth of which in Miiller's 'Archiv fur Anat. und 



I have elsewhere prcved, crossed Phys.' 1837, s. 40. 



