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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 ti'ibes 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.*
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 pos-
* The whiskers of Confucius are said to be preserved as relics
in China.
