Ordinary monkeys still possess the power to move their ears; but the manlike or anthropoid apes resemble us in the rudimentary condition of their ear-muscles; and Darwin was assured by the keepers in the London Zoological Gardens that these animals never move or erect their ears. He suggests two theories to account for the loss of this power: first, that, owing to their arboreal habits and great strength, these apes were not exposed to much danger, and thus gradually, through disuse, lost control over these organs, just as birds on oceanic islands where they are not subject to attacks have lost the use of their wings; secondly, that the freedom with which they can move the head in a horizontal plane enabled them to dispense with mobile ears.
The remarkable variability of the ears—greater, by the way, in men than in women—is another reason for regarding them as rudimentary organs, inherited from remote semi-human ancestors, to whom they were useful; for great variability is a characteristic of all rudimentary organs. Haeckel facetiously suggests that “at large assemblies, where our interest is not sufficiently enchained, nothing is more instructive and entertaining than a comparative study of the countless variations in the form of the ears.” The ancient Greek artists were aware of this variability, for Wincklemann speaks of “the infinite variety of forms of the ear on heads modelled from life.” “It was customary with the ancient artists to elaborate no portion of the head more diligently than the ears.” “In portrait figures, when the countenance is so much injured as not to be recognised, we can occasionally make a correct conjecture as to the person intended, if it is one of whom we have any knowledge, merely by the form of the ear; thus we infer a head of Marcus Aurelius from an ear with an unusually large inner opening.”
If we compare a man’s ears with those of a dog or horse, differences of shape appear no less conspicuous than differences in mobility. Two points are especially characteristic of man—the folded upper margin and the lobule. Our cousins, the anthropoid apes, are the only other animals which have the margin of the ear thus folded inwards, the lower monkeys having them simple and pointed, like other animals. The sculptor, Mr. Woolner, called Darwin’s attention to “a little blunt point, projecting from the inwardly-folded margin or helix.” Darwin, on investigating the matter, came to the conclusion that these points “are vestiges of the tips of former erect and pointed ears”; being led to think so “from the frequency of their occurrence, and from the general correspondence in position with that of the tip of a pointed ear.”
The lobule is still more peculiar to man than the folded margin, since he does not even share it with the anthropoid apes, although, according to Professor Mivart, “a rudiment of it is found in the gorilla.” An intermediate stage between man and ape is occupied by some savage tribes in whom the lobule is scantily developed or even absent.
COSMETICS AND FASHION
The lobule of the human ear has been presumably developed through the agency of Sexual Selection, as it is an ornament the absence of which is at once felt. And there are other ways in which this organ has been gradually brought into harmony with the laws of beauty. Thus the loss of the hair (of which rudiments are still occasionally present) made visible the soft skin and the delicate tint of the ear, which, like that of the cheeks, may be momentarily heightened by a blush, and thus become an index of emotional expression. A permanently heightened colour of the ear, however, caused by exposure to extreme cold or by rough treatment, is almost as great a blemish as a red nose or pallid lips. If boxers are anxious to deform their ears, no one has a right to object; but children have a right to ask of their parents and teachers not to redden their ears permanently by pulling or boxing them. That a delicate and important sense-organ like the ear should be so frequently chosen as a place to inflict punishment, shows the necessity of a general diffusion of hygienic knowledge. It may not be superfluous to add a caution to lovers, that the ears should never be taken as an osculatory substitute for the lips or cheeks, as cases are known in medical practice where the tympanum, and consequently the hearing, has been destroyed by a vigorous kiss implanted by a foolish lover on his sweetheart’s ears.
An ear to be beautiful should be about twice as long as broad. It should be attached to the head almost straight, or slightly inclined backwards, and should almost touch the head with the back of its upper point. Many poor girls are deformed for life through the ignorance of their mothers, who allow them to wear their hair or bonnets in such a way as to make the ears stand out obliquely. As the ears contain no bones, but consist entirely of cartilages and skin, they can be, more readily even than the nose, moulded into a fine shape at an early age. As Drs. Brinton and Napheys remark, “Even when the ear is in part or altogether absent, the case is not desperate. An ‘artificial ear’ can be made of vulcanised rubber, or other material, tinted the colour of the flesh, and attached to the side of the head with such deftness that its character will escape every ordinary eye.” There is therefore no excuse for having badly-shaped or wrongly-inclined ears in these days of cosmetic surgery.
In the most beautiful ears the lobe is free, and not attached to the head in its lower part. Heavy earrings, which have a tendency to unduly enlarge the lobules, are now tabooed by Fashion; but very small jewels in the ear may be looked on, like small finger-rings, necklaces, and bracelets, as unobjectionable from an æsthetic point of view, though real beauty unadorned is adorned the most.
Formerly Fashion maltreated the poor ears quite as badly as it still does the waist and the feet. Lubbock remarks that the East Islanders enlarge their ears till they come down to the shoulders; and Darwin, after referring to liberties taken with the nose, says that “the ears are everywhere pierced and similarly ornamented, and with the Botocudos and Lenguas of South America the hole is gradually so much enlarged that the lower edge touches the shoulder.”
Among the Greeks, as Becker remarks, "it was considered a dishonour, or a token of foreign manners, for men to have their ears bored.... Women and girls, however, not only used earrings, ἐνώτια, ἐλλόβια, ἑλικτῆρες which are seen perpetually in vases, but also wore numerous articles of jewellery about the neck, the arms, and on the leg above the ankle."