As the Beard makes its appearance simultaneously with one of the most important natural changes in man’s constitution, it has in all ages been regarded as the ensign of manliness. All the leading races of men, whether of warm or cold climates, who have stamped their character on history—Egyptians, Indians, Jews, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Arabs, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Turks, Scandinavians, Sclaves—were furnished with an abundant growth of this natural covering. Their enterprizes were accordingly distinguished by a corresponding vigour and daring. The fact, too, is indisputable, that their hardiest efforts were cotemporaneous with the existence of their Beards; and a closer investigation would show that the rise and fall of this natural feature has had more influence on the progress and decline of nations, than has hitherto been suspected. Though there are _individual_ exceptions, the absence of Beard is usually a sign of physical and moral weakness; and in degenerate tribes wholly without, or very deficient, there is a conscious want of manly dignity, and contentedness with a low physical, moral, and intellectual condition. Such tribes have to be sought for by the physiologist and ethnologist; the _historian_ is never called upon to do honor to their deeds. Nor is it without significance that the effeminate Chinese have signalized their present attempt to become once more free men, instead of tartar tools—by a formal resolve to have done with pigtails, and let their hair take its natural course over head and chin.[2] Footnote 2: The whiskers of Confucius are said to be preserved as relics in China. But the hair does not merely act as an external sign; it has, or it would not be there, its own proper and distinct functions to perform. The most important of these is the protection of some of the most susceptible portions of our frame from cold and moisture—those fruitful sources of painful, and often fatal, disease. And what more admirable contrivance could be thought of for this purpose than a free and graceful veil of hair—a substance possessing the important properties of power to repel moisture, and to serve as a non-conductor of heat and electricity. Let me now show you what lies underneath the surface naturally covered by the Beard. We have first that ganglion or knot, the seat of the exquisitely painful affection tic doloureux. From it you will perceive white threads of nerves radiating to the jaws precisely in the line protected by the Beard. As you contemplate it, you can hardly fail to be struck with the fact, that in shaving may sometimes originate that local paralysis which disfigures the corners of the mouth. Next we have the nerves of the teeth, which all know to be so affected by changes of temperature.