Chap. XX.] ABSENCE OF HAIR. 359 



Absence of Hair on the Body^ and its Development on 

 the Face and Head. — From the presence of the "woolly 

 hair or lanugo on the human foetus, and of rudimentary 

 hairs scattered over the body during maturity, we may 

 infer that man is descended from some animal which was 

 born hairy and remained so during life. The loss of hair 

 is an inconvenience and probably an injury to man even 

 under a hot climate, for he is thus exjjosed to sudden 

 chills, especially during wet weather. As Mr. Wallace 

 remarks, the natives in all countries are glad to protect 

 their naked backs and shoulders with some slight cover- 

 ing. No one supposes that the nakedness of the skin is 

 any direct advantage to man, so that his body cannot have 

 been divested of hair through natural selection," Nor 

 have we any grounds for believing, as shown in a for- 

 mer chapter, that this can be due to the direct action of the 

 conditions to which man has long been exposed, or that 

 it is the result of correlated development. 



The absence of hair on the body is to a certain extent 

 a secondary sexual character ; for in all parts of the world 

 women are less hairy than men. Therefore we may rea- 



" 'Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection,' 18*70, p. 346. 

 Mr. Wallace believes (p. 350) " that some intelligent power has guided 

 or determined the development of man ; " and he considers the hair- 

 less condition of the skin as coming under this head. The Rev. T. R. 

 Stabbing, in commenting on this view (' Transactions of Devonshire 

 Assoc, for Science,' 1870) remarks that, had Mr. Wallace " employed 

 his usual ingenuity on the question of man's hairless skin, he might have 

 seen the possibility of its selection through its superior beauty or the 

 health attaching to superior cleanliness. At any rate it is surprising 

 that he should picture to himself a superior intelligence plucking the 

 hair from the backs of savage men (to whom, according to his own ac- 

 count, it would have been useful and beneficial), in order that the de- 

 scendants of the poor shorn wretches might, after many deaths from cold 

 and damp in the course of many generations," have been forced to raise 

 themselves in the scale of civilization through the practice of various 

 arts, in the manner indicated by Mr. Wallace. 



