18 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



does not warn them of danger, nor guide them to their food; nor 

 does it prevent the Esquimaux from sleeping in the most fetid at- 

 mosphere, nor many savages from eating half-putrid meat. In 

 Europeans the power differs greatly in different individuals, as i 

 am assured by an eminent naturalist who possesses this sense 

 highly developed, and who has attended to the subject. Those 

 who believe in the principle of gradual evolution, will not readily 

 admit that the sense of smell in its present state was originally 

 acquired by man, as he now exists. He inherits the power in an 

 enfeebled and so far rudimentary condition, from some early pro- 

 genitor, to whom it was highly serviceable, and by whom it was 

 continually used. In those animals which have this sense highly 

 developed, such as dogs and horses, the recollection of persona 

 and of places is strongly associated with their odor; and we can 

 thus perhaps understand how it is, as Dr. Maudsley has truly re- 

 marked," that the sense of smell In man "is singularly effective 

 "in recalling vividly the ideas and images of forgotten scenes and 

 "places." 



Man differs conspicuously from all She other Primates in being 

 almost naked. But a few short straggling hairs are found over 

 the greater part of the body in the man, and fine down on that of 

 the woman. The different races differ much in hairiness; and in 

 the individuals of the same race the hairs are highly variable, 

 not only in abundance, but likewise In position: thus In some 

 Europeans the shoulders are quite naked, whilst 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 fine, short, and pale-colored 

 hairs on the limbs and other parts of the body, occasionally be- 

 come developed into "thickset, 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 in- 

 herited. These hairs, too, seem to have their representatives; for 

 in the chimpanzee, and in certain species of Macacus, there are 



cous membrane of the olfactory region, as well as of the skin of the 

 body. I have, therefore, spoken in the text of the dark-colored races 

 having a finer sense of smell than the white races. See his paper 'Med- 

 ico-Chirurglcal Transactions,' London, vol. liii., 1870, p. 276. 



s' 'The Physiology and Pathology of Mind,' 2na edit. 1868, p. 134. 



28 Eschricht, Ueber die Richtung der Haare am menschlichen Korper, 

 'Muller's Archiv fur Anat. und Phys.' 1837, s. 47. I shall often have 

 to refer to this very curious paper. 



'" Paget, 'Lectures on Surgical Pathology,' 1853, vol. i. p. 71. 



