shame of the body was somewhat lessened, and young women began to expose their arm pits freely in the ball room and theater, some removed the axillary hair, and others did not. A little later, the practice of removing the hair became practically universal, and now the hair is seldom seen. Probably the conflict of opinion in these matters is really between the man’s judgment of beauty and the woman’s. But we must pass over these details, and hurry on with our main problem.
It is evident now that whether there are other considerations or not, the most important element in the beauty of any individual is the evidence of her (or his) fitness for the function of procreating healthy children of the highest type of efficiency, according to the standards of the race; and ability to protect these children. The positive beauty characters we have already examined are clearly such marks of ability to perpetuate the species in the finest and noblest way, and the characters we shall now consider strengthen the interpretation.
5. Fat. Here again there are racial differences, but amongst the European races, no racial indications. We may leave out of consideration the Africans and the South Sea Islanders, with their criteria of beauty-fat which seem so odd to us, but which are quite intelligible when viewed in the light of racial characters, and consider Western conditions and standards.
