170 DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. 



and in both sexes at the junction of all four limbs with 

 the trunk, favors this inference — on the assumption that 

 the hair was lost before man became erect ; for the parts 

 which now retain most hair would then have been most 

 protected from the heat of the sun. The crown of the 

 head, however, offers a curious exception, for at all times 

 it must have been one of the most exposed parts, yet it is 

 thickly clothed with hair. The fact, however, that the 

 other members of the order of Primates, to which man 

 belongs, although inhabiting various hot regions, are well 

 clothed with hair, generally thickest on the upper sur- 

 face, is opposed to the supposition that man became naked 

 through the action of the sun. 



Descent ^e different races differ much in hairiness ; 



of Man, and in the individuals of the same race the 

 pa ° e " hairs are highly variable, not only in abun- 

 dance, but likewise in position : thus in some Europeans 

 the shoulders are quite naked, while in others they bear 

 thick tufts of hair. There can be little doubt that the 

 hairs thus scattered over the body are the rudiments of 

 the uniform hairy coat of the lower animals. This view 

 is rendered all the more probable, as it is known that 

 the fine, short, and pale-colored hairs on the limbs and 

 other parts of the body occasionally become developed 

 into "thick-set, long, and rather coarse dark hairs," 

 when abnormally nourished near old-standing inflamed 

 surfaces. 



I am informed by Sir James Paget that often several 

 members of a family have a few hairs in their eyebrows 

 much longer than the others ; so that even this slight 

 peculiarity seems to be inherited. These hairs, too, seem 

 to have their representatives ; for in the chimpanzee, and 

 in certain species of Macacus, there are scattered hairs of 



