The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to SexDarwin, Charles
History
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex
Darwin, Charles
Evolution (Biology); Human beings -- Origin; Sex differences; Sexual dimorphism (Animals); Sexual selection in animals
In those animals which have this sense highly developed, such as dogs
and horses, the recollection of persons and of places is strongly
associated with their odour; and we can thus perhaps understand how it
is, as Dr. Maudsley has truly remarked (37. ‘The Physiology and
Pathology of Mind,’ 2nd ed. 1868, p. 134.), 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 the 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. (38. Eschricht,
Über die Richtung der Haare am menschlichen Körper, Muller’s ‘Archiv
fur Anat. und Phys.’ 1837, s. 47. I shall often have to refer to this
very curious paper.) 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-coloured hairs on the limbs and
other parts of the body, occasionally become developed into “thickset,
long, and rather coarse dark hairs,” when abnormally nourished near
old-standing inflamed surfaces. (39. Paget, ‘Lectures on Surgical
Pathology,’ 1853, vol. i. p. 71.)
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 considerable
length rising from the naked skin above the eyes, and corresponding to
our eyebrows; similar long hairs project from the hairy covering of the
superciliary ridges in some baboons.
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