CAUSE OF MAN’S NUDITY

“From the presence of the woolly hair or lanugo on the human foetus, and of rudimentary hairs scattered over the body during maturity,” Darwin inferred that “man is descended from some animal which was born hairy and remained so during life.” He believed that “the loss of hair is an inconvenience and probably an injury to man, even in a hot climate, for he is thus exposed to the scorching in the sun, and 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 covering. No one supposes that the nakedness of the skin is any direct advantage to man; his body, therefore, cannot have been divested of hair through Natural Selection.” Accordingly, he concludes that man lost his hairy covering through Sexual Selection, for ornamental purposes.

But if it can be shown that the nakedness of his skin is in some way of advantage to man, this argument falls to the ground. There are sufficient reasons, I think, for believing that Natural Selection aided Sexual Selection in divesting man of his hairy coat.

With his usual candour Darwin noticed the evidence which seemed to tell against his view. Mr. Belt, he says, “believes that within the tropics it is an advantage to man to be destitute of hair, as he is thus enabled to free himself of the multitude of ticks (acari) and other parasites with which he is often infested, and which sometimes cause ulceration.” Darwin doubts, however, whether this evil is of sufficient magnitude to have led to the denudation of the body through Natural Selection, “since none of the many quadrupeds inhabiting the tropics have, as far as I know, acquired any specialised means of relief.” But as primitive man’s habits of cleanliness are much inferior to those of animals, this objection loses its force; and it is, moreover, weakened by the testimony of Sir W. Denison that “it is said to be a practice with the Australians, when the vermin get troublesome, to singe themselves.” We also know that the ancient EgyptiansEgyptians shaved off their hair from motives of cleanliness.

However, it is not likely that the superior advantages of cleanliness and freedom from parasites would alone have sufficed to produce so great a change in man as the loss of his hair. It is more probable that the sun was the chief agent in accomplishing this transformation. I fail to see the force of Darwin’s contention that the fact 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 surface, is opposed to the supposition that man became naked through the action of the sun.” For these animals commonly live in forests and on trees, where they are protected from the rays of the sun, which is not the case with man.

Furthermore, Darwin himself mentions some circumstances which point to the conclusion that the sun is the cause of man’s nudity. He says, for instance, that “elephants and rhinoceroses are almost hairless; and as certain extinct species which formerly lived under an arctic climate were covered with long wool or hair, it would almost appear as if the existing species of both genera had lost their hairy covering from exposure to heat. This appears the more probable as the elephants in India which live on elevated and cool districts are more hairy than those on the lowlands.”

Bearing in mind what was said in the chapter on the Complexion regarding the negro’s skin, there is no difficulty in understanding why Natural Selection should eliminate the hairy covering of the skin while favouring a dark complexion. Hair not only absorbs the sun’s heat, but retains that of the body; hence a hairy man not living on trees would be very uncomfortable in Africa, and likely to succumb to the enervating effects of high temperature. The negro’s naked skin, on the other hand, is, as we have seen, specially devised as a body-cooler. The black pigment protects the underlying nerves of temperature, while the solar heat absorbed by this pigment is immediately radiated in the form of perspiration. Now we can see not only why the negro’s skin is more velvety, smooth, and hairless than our own, but why its sweat-pores are larger and more numerous than in our skin.

At a later stage of evolution Sexual Selection probably came in to aid in this process of denudation. We may infer this, in the first place, from the analogous case of apes who have denuded and variously-coloured patches on the head and elsewhere, which they use for purposes of display, to attract the notice of the opposite sex; in the second place, from the fact that there are not a few tribes who pluck out their hairs. “The Fuegians threatened a young missionary, who was left for a time with them, to strip him naked, and pluck the hairs from his face and body, yet he was far from being a hairy man;” and “throughout the world the races which are almost completely destitute of a beard, dislike hairs on the face and body, and take pains to eradicate them.” Darwin also notes some facts which, by analogy, seem to make it probable that “the long-continued habit of eradicating the hair may have produced an inherited effect.”

In the case of the white race we cannot rely so much on the action of the sun as accounting for the absence of hair, but must place more especial emphasis on Sexual Selection. We are warranted in doing this by the consideration that Taste for Beauty is more developed in the white race, and therefore has more influence in controlling the choice of a mate. “As the body in woman is less hairy than in man, and as this character is common to all races, we may conclude” with Darwin “that it was our female semi-human ancestors who were first divested of hair,” this character being then transmitted by the mothers to their children of both sexes.

The two universal traits of Beauty which chiefly guided man in the preference of a hairless skin were evidently Smoothness and Colour. One need only compare for a moment the face of a female chimpanzee, its leathery folded skin and straggling hairs, with the smooth and rosy complexion of a European damsel, to understand that, leaving touch out of consideration, sight alone would have sufficed to give the preference to the hairless skin. But since we derive less direct advantage than the tropical races from such a skin, cases of reversion to the hairy type are more common among us than with them, and our bodies in general are more hairy.

The elimination of hair from those parts of the body where it is less beautiful than a nude skin, is only one of the functions of Sexual Selection. Another equally important function is the preservation and elongation of the hair in a few places for ornamental purposes.

“We know from Eschricht,” says Darwin, “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.”

A long beard serves, to some extent, to protect the throat, but a moustache serves no such use, and it seems therefore more probable that beards as well as moustaches were developed in man for ornamental purposes, as in many monkeys (see, for some very curious pictures of bearded monkeys, Descent of Man, chap. xviii.) But why should women have lost their beards while men retained theirs? Because of the importance of emphasising the secondary sexual differences between man and woman, on which the degree of amorous infatuation depends. The tendency of evolution, as we have seen, has been to make the sexes more and more different in appearance; and as man chooses his mate chiefly on Æsthetic grounds, he habitually gave the preference to smooth-faced women, whereas woman’s choice, being largely based on dynamic grounds, fell on the bearded and moustached men, since a luxurious growth of hair is commonly a sign of physical vigour. Hence the humiliation of the young man who cannot raise a moustache, and the reciprocal horror of the young lady who finds the germs of one on her lip. Both are instinctively afraid of being “boycotted” by Cupid, and for ever debarred from the pleasures of mutual Romantic Love.

Women are quite right in dreading hair in the face as a blemish, for it is not only objectionable as a masculine trait, but also as a characteristic of old age, a hairy face being quite a common attribute of aged females. But with men the case is different. Though women may still be often influenced in their amorous choice by a beard, it is not, as just pointed out, on Æsthetic grounds; and it is indeed very dubious if the beard can be accepted as a real personal ornament. True, the ancient Greeks respected a beard as an attribute of maturity and manhood, but their ideal of supreme beauty was nevertheless an unbearded youth: Apollo has neither beard nor moustache. The ancient Egyptians had a horror of the bearded and long-haired Greeks. “No Egyptian of either sex would on any account kiss the lips of a Greek,” and whenever the Egyptians “intended to convey the idea of a man of low condition, or a slovenly person, the artists represented him with a beard” (Wilkinson). Similarly, in the second edition of his Anatomy of Expression (1824), Sir Charles Bell wrote that “When those essays were first written there was not a beard to be seen in England unless joined with squalor and neglect, and I had the conviction that this appendage concealed the finest features. Being in Rome, however, during the procession of the Corpus Domini, I saw that the expression was not injured by the beard, but that it added to the dignity and character of years.”

These two sentences contain the whole philosophy of beards. The expression of character is not injured, but rather increased by a beard; but if it conceals the fine features of youth it is objectionable. There are men whose faces are too wide, and whose appearance is therefore improved by a chin-beard; and there are others whose faces are too narrow, and who consequently look better with side-whiskers. But in a well-shaped youthful masculine face a beard is as great a superfluity, if not a blemish, as in a woman’s face.

Now, since the faces of civilised races are undoubtedly becoming more beautiful as time advances, it is comforting to know that, notwithstanding female selection, the beard is gradually disappearing. Very few men are able to raise a fine beard to-day, even with the artificial stimulus of several years’ daily shaving; and the time, no doubt, is not very distant when men will go to the cosmetic electrician to have their straggling hairbulbs in the chin killed. This may produce an inherited effect on their children; and the always smooth-faced mother, too, cannot but exert some hereditary influence on her sons as well as her daughters. The women, in turn, will inherit some of the superior Æsthetic Taste of the men, and begin to see that there is more charm in a smooth than in a bearded face; while there will still be room enough for those sexual differences in facial Beauty which feed the flame of Love.

The following newspaper paragraph, though it may be a mere jeu d’esprit, is amusing and suggestive: “A Frenchman sent a circular to all his friends asking why they cultivated a beard. Among the answers 9 stated, ‘Because I wish to avoid shaving’; 12 ‘Because I do not wish to catch cold’; 5 ‘Because I wish to conceal bad teeth’; ‘Because I wish to conceal the length of my nose’; 6 ‘Because I am a soldier’; 21 ‘Because I was a soldier’; 65 ‘Because my wife likes it’; 28 ‘Because my love likes it’; 15 answered that they wore no beards.”

Moustaches are much more common to-day than beards, and it is barely possible that they may escape Æsthetic condemnation, and survive to the millennium. Persons with very short upper lips or flat noses, it is true, only emphasise their shortcomings by wearing a moustache; but in broad faces with prominent noses a well-shaped, not too drooping, moustache is no doubt an ornament, relieving the gravity of the masculine features and adding to their expression. As Bell remarks: “Although the hair of the upper lip does conceal the finer modulations of the mouth, as in woman, it adds to the character of the stronger and harsher emotions.” “I was led to attend more particularly to the moustache as a feature of expression,” he says, “in meeting a handsome young French soldier coming up a long ascent in the CÔte d’Or, and breathing hard, although with a good-humoured, innocent expression. His sharp-pointed black moustache rose and fell with a catamount look that set me to think on the cause.”

Young men may find in Bell’s remarks a suggestion as to how they may make the moustache a permanent ornament of the human race. The movements of the moustache are dependent on the muscle called depressor alÆ nasi. By specially cultivating this muscle men might in course of time make the movements of the moustaches subject to voluntary control. Just think what a capacity for emotional expression lies in such a simple organ as the dog’s caudal appendage, aptly called the “psychographic tail” by Vischer: and moustaches are double, and therefore equal to two psychographic appendages!

Sexual Selection would not fail to seize on this “new departure” in moustaches immediately in order to emphasise the sexual differences of expression in the face, and thus increase the ardour of romantic passion. A few days ago I came across an attempt in a German paper to explain the meaning of the word Flirtation. The writer derives the word from an old expression meaning to toss or cast about. This he refers to the eyes, and thinks that the proper translation of Flirtation is Äugeln, i.e. to “make eyes.” We, of course, know that flirting is a fine art which includes a vast deal besides Äugeln; but “making eyes” is certainly one of its tricks. Now, is it not probable that by and by, when young men will have properly trained their depressor alÆ nasi, they will look upon the making of eyes as a feminine attribute, and, instead of winking at their sweethearts, express their admiration by some subtle and graceful movement of the moustaches? This would obliterate Darwin’s assertion that Love has no special means of expression.

BALDNESS AND DEPILATORIES

Superficial students of Darwinism are constantly making owlish predictions that ere many generations will have passed bald heads will be the normal aspect of man. But, as we have just seen in the case of beards, it is not utility or Natural Selection so much as Sexual, Æsthetico-Amorous Selection on which the evolution of Personal Beauty depends. If Natural Selection were at work alone we should, indeed, ultimately become bald; for as soon as man begins to cover his head with a cap or hat, he takes away the chief function of the hair on the top of the head, where it serves as a protection against wind and weather. But Sexual Selection now steps in and says that the hair must remain, because without it the head looks decidedly ugly, whatever its shape.

“Eschricht states that in the human foetus the hair on the face during the fifth month is longer than that on the head; and this indicates that our semi-human progenitors were not furnished with long tresses, which must therefore have been a late acquisition. This is likewise indicated by the extraordinary difference in the length of the hair in the different races: in the negro the hair forms a mere curly mat; with us it is of great length, and with the American natives it not rarely reaches to the ground. Some species of Semnopithecus have their head covered with moderately long hair, and this probably serves as an ornament, and was acquired through sexual selection. The same view may perhaps be extended to mankind, for we know that long tresses are now and were formerly much admired, as may be observed in the works of almost every poet; St. Paul says, ‘If a woman have long hair it is a glory to her;’ and we have seen that in North America a chief was elected solely from the length of his hair” (Darwin).

Inasmuch as Sexual Selection or Love is impeded in its action not only by pecuniary and social considerations, but by the fact that it cannot be guided by any particular feature alone, its action is slow and sometimes uncertain. Hence the increase of bald heads. It is therefore necessary to supplement the beautifying results of Sexual Selection by means of hygienic precautions, such as avoiding air-tight, warm, high hats, badly ventilated rooms, intemperate habits, and other causes of baldness. Hereditary baldness is difficult to arrest in its course; but even in such cases much may be accomplished by beginning in childhood to take proper care of the hair. Most persons—especially men—seem to imagine that combs and brushes are made solely for the purpose of arranging the hair in some approved fashion; whereas, if properly used, a brush adds as much to the sensuous beauty of the hair as to its formal appearance. To remove all the dust from the hair, and give it gloss and healthy colour, about fifty daily strokes, or more even, are recommended. Avoid irritating the scalp with fine combs or hard bristles, and wash it once or twice a week with a weak solution of ammonia or borax. Hair that is properly brushed is always glossy with its natural oil, and needs no vulgar ointment, offensive to the smell and suggestive of uncleanliness. If with these hygienic precautions the hair refuses to become beautiful, it is time to get medical advice; for the dull colour and dryness of the hair which lead to baldness are often due to constitutional disease.

Powdering the hair is fortunately no longer in vogue as it was formerly. It is a most unÆsthetic habit, not only because white or gray hair is naturally suggestive of old age, grief, and decrepitude, but because the flour forms with the perspiration and with the oil of the hair a nasty compound. William Pitt “estimated, in 1795, that the amount of flour annually consumed for this purpose in the United Kingdom represented the enormous and incredible value of six million dollars.”

It is estimated that the average number of hairs on the head is 120,000. This allows one to look with considerable indifference on the loss of a few hundred, all the more as in ordinary cases, even after illness, every hair lost is replaced by another. But when the papilla at the base of the hair cavity is destroyed, then baldness is inevitable. It follows from this that the only certain way of removing hair permanently from places where it is not desired is to destroy this papilla. “Plucking hair out by the root” does not destroy it. “If they are pulled out with the tweezers there is a still greater stimulus given,” says Dr. Bulkley (The Skin in Health and Disease), “and the hairs return yet more coarse and obtrusive.” The various Oriental and Occidental pastes for removing the hair have no more permanent effect than shaving. “Superfluous hairs can be removed either by the introduction of an irregularly-shaped needle into the follicle (after the extraction of the hair), which is then twisted so as to break up the papilla and produce a little inflammation, which closes the follicle; or a needle can be inserted, and a current from a battery be turned on, when the follicle is destroyed by what is known as electrolysis. These procedures could be done only by a physician.”

Concerning electrolysis Dr. S. E. Woody says in the American Practitioner and News that the number of hairs to return and demand a second removal will decrease with the skill of the operator and the thoroughness of the operation. He usually expects the return of about 5 per cent, but when these are in turn removed the cure is complete. “You should have the patient come only on bright days, for good light is necessary.”

ÆSTHETIC VALUE OF HAIR

If not the most beautiful part of the head, hair certainly is the most beautifying. To improve the shape of mouth, nose, chin, or eyes requires time and patience, but the arrangement of the hair can be altered in a minute, not only to its own advantage, but so as to enhance the beauty of the whole face. By clever manipulation of her long tresses, a woman can alter her appearance almost as completely as a man can by shaving off his long beard or moustache.

But, alas! If the prevalence of the bustle and wasp-waist allowed any doubt to remain as to the woful rarity of Æsthetic taste among women, it would be found in the arrangement of the hair and the kind of head-dresses they commonly adopt at the behest of Fashion. “Because women as a rule do not know what beauty means,” says Mrs. Haweis (The Art of Beauty), “therefore they catch at whatever presents itself as a novelty.... They do not pause to consider whether the old fashion became them better—whether the new one reveals more clearly the slight shrinking of the jaw, or spoils the pretty colour still blooming in the cheek.”

The latest head-dress foisted on the feminine world by Parisian Fashion shows most strikingly how Fashion is the Handmaid of Vulgarity as well as of Ugliness. Heaven knows, the high silk hats worn by men are bad enough, on hygienic as well as Æsthetic grounds. They promote baldness and destroy all the artistic proportions of stature, making the head look by one half too high. But silk hats are a harmless trifle compared with the shapeless straw-towers, ornamented with bird-corpses, that have been worn of late by almost all women in countries which slavishly follow Parisian example. And there is this great difference between man’s silk hat and woman’s bird-sarcophagus—the former only results in ugliness, the second is also evidence of heartlessness, and leads to vulgarity. For what is it but vulgarity if women continue to go to the theatre for two winters with hats which make it quite impossible for those sitting behind them to see the scenery and enjoy the play—and all this in spite of innumerable sarcastic and angry protests in the journals? Is not the first rule of etiquette and good manners regard for the feelings and pleasures of others?

What would women say to a man who kept on his tall hat in a theatre until the ushers threw him out? Would they not all pronounce him either intoxicated or ineffably vulgar? Would not Schopenhauer, if he could go to an American theatre to-day, be justified in saying that women are not only the “unÆsthetic sex,” but also the “ill-bred sex”? And can the women who are so devoid of courtesy towards the men wonder that masculine gallantry towards women on street-cars and elsewhere seems to be on the wane?

Although there are no two heads in which the most pleasing effect is secured by precisely the same arrangement of the hair and the same style of hat, it may be laid down as a universal rule that a very high hat or arrangement of the hair is becoming to no one, for the reason above indicated. Let it be observed, says Mr. Buskin, “that in spite of all custom, an Englishman instantly acknowledges, and at first sight, the superiority of the turban to the hat.” “Guido,” says Mrs. Haweis, “probably felt the peculiar charm of the turban when he placed one upon the quiet melancholy head of Beatrice Cenci.” For full and bright young faces the Tam o’ Shanter is the loveliest of all head-dresses. But this subject is too large to be discussed in a paragraph. In Mrs. Haweis’s Art of Beauty may be found some elegant illustrations of head-dresses placed near fashionable monstrosities; and young ladies would do well to devote an hour a day for a year or two to the study of some history of costume. Nothing awakens the sense of Beauty so rapidly as good models and comparisons.

Concerning the arrangement of the hair two more points may be noted. Is it not about time to do away with the venerable absurdity of parting the hair? If entire baldness is voted ugly, why should partial baldness be courted? The hair should be allowed to remain in its natural direction of growth. It does not part itself naturally, nor again—and this is a much more important point—does it grow backward from the forehead. The Chinese coiffure disfigures every woman who adopts it; and the habit of combing back the hair tightly from the forehead, moreover, often causes neuralgic headache, the cause of which is unsuspected; not to speak of the fact that such a coiffure raises the eyebrows, and thus gives a fixed expression of amazed stupefaction. The hair naturally falls over the forehead, and fringes it as beautifully as a grove does a lake.

The ancient Greek notions on this subject are worthy of attentive consideration. “Women who had a high forehead placed a band over it, with the design of making it thereby seem lower,” says Winckelmann. Not only in women but in mature men the hair was so arranged as to cover up “the receding bare corners over the temples, which usually enlarge as life advances beyond that age when the forehead is naturally high.” The modern fringe or “bang” is, however, an improvement even on the Greek curve of the hair over the temples. It improves the appearance of all women except those whose forehead is very low naturally; but in all cases exaggeration must be avoided.

A writer in the London Evening Standard thinks it is strange that the English, “who have the poorest hair in Europe, make the least attempt to show what they have,” and that it has now “come to such a pass that a maiden of twenty thinks it almost indecent to wear her hair loose.” He traces this to the tyranny of Fashion—the ugly majority having compelled the beautiful minority to conceal their charms. But we may be sure that ere long Beauty will revolt against Fashion. It will be another French revolution, practically,—an emphatic protest against Parisian dictation and vulgarity.