Page:Personal Beauty and Racial Betterment.djvu/42

36 probable that another effect of the internal changes which produce baldness is a lessening of the resistance of the organism, so that the baldheaded man cannot stand the muscular exertion or the nervous strain of which the hairy-headed man is capable. At any rate, baldness is a fatal bar to beauty, both in the male and the female, although to many persons (men especially) an individual of the opposite sex whose pate-hair is exceptionally abundant is repulsive. Another indication of the dependence of the pate-hair on metabolism in other regions is found in the apparent connection between hair and temperament. It is difficult to conceive of a baldheaded musical genius or artist; although even to the rule implied here, exceptions do occur. Temperament, and all emotional factors, as we now know, depend largely on the bodily metabolism, especially on the functions of the internally secreting glands. The quantitative hair character, therefore, may in all probability be reduced to an indication of physical vigor; and physical vigor is far more important, as a beauty asset, than mental ability. Whether the popular belief that the mental ability of a child is in the inverse proportion to the growth of his hair, has any foundation, and whether a similar rule holds for