This view of the question also solves a difficulty which has staggered even such a leading evolutionist as Mr. Wallace, viz., the fact that the oldest prehistoric skulls that have been found “surpass the average of modern European skulls in capacity.” But if it is the easiest thing in the world to find an ordinary stupid man in our streets with a larger skull than that of many a clever brain-worker, why should we attach so much importance to those prehistoric skulls? Had their brains been examined, they would doubtless have been found as scantily furrowed as those of a big-headed modern anarchist.
FASHIONABLE DEFORMITY
That the intellectual powers are to a large extent independent of the particular conformation of the skull is shown further by the circumstance that so many savage tribes have for centuries followed the fashion of artificially shaping their heads, without any apparent effect on their minds. Man’s brain incites him, as Topinard remarks, “to the noblest deeds, as well as to the most ridiculous practices, such as cutting off the little finger, scorching the soles of the feet, extracting the front teeth, or deforming the head because others have done so before him.” But of all silly Fashions hostile to Beauty, that of deforming the head has found the largest number of followers—always excepting, of course, the modern Wasp-Waist Mania.
Deformed skulls have been found in the Caucasus, the Crimea, Hungary, Silesia, France, Belgium, Switzerland, in Polynesia, in different parts of Asia, etc. “But the classic country in which these deformations are found is America,” says Topinard. “M. Gosse has described sixteen species of artificial deformation, ten of which were in American skulls.” “Sometimes the infant was fastened on a plank or a sort of cradle with leather straps; or they applied pieces of clay, pressing them down with small boards on the forehead, the vertex, and the occiput.... Sometimes the head was kneaded with the hands or knees, or, the infant being laid on the back, the elbow was pressed on the forehead. Circular bands were sometimes employed to support the sides of the head.”
“Many American Indians,” says Darwin, “are known to admire a head so extremely flattened as to appear to us idiotic. The natives of the north-western coast compress the head into a pointed cone;” while the inhabitants of Arakhan “admire a broad, smooth forehead, and in order to produce it, they fasten a plate of lead on the head of the new-born children.”
“The genuine Turkish skull is of the broad Tartar form,” says Mr. Tylor, “while the nations of Greece and Asia Minor have oval skulls, which gives the reason why at Constantinople it became the fashion to mould the babies’ skulls round, so that they grew up with the broad head of the conquering race. Relics of such barbarism linger on in the midst of civilisation, and not long ago a French physician surprised the world by the fact that nurses in Normandy were still giving the children’s heads a sugar-loaf shape by bandages and a tight cap, while in Brittany they preferred to press it round. No doubt they are doing so to this day.”
“Failure properly to mould the cranium of her offspring,” says Bancroft, “gives to the Chinook matron the reputation of a lazy and undutiful mother, and subjects the neglected children to the ridicule of their young companions, so despotic is fashion.”
Food for thought will also be found in these remarks by Darwin. Ethnologists believe, he says, “that the skull is modified by the kind of cradle in which infants sleep;” and Schaffhausen is convinced that “in certain trades, such as that of a shoemaker, where the head is habitually held forward, the forehead becomes more round and prominent.” If this is true, then we have one reason, at least, why authors have such large foreheads.
WRINKLES
Wrinkles in the face are signs of advanced age, or disease, or habits of profound meditation, or frequent indulgence in frowning and grief. The wrinkles on a thinker’s forehead do not arouse our disapproval, because they are often eloquent of genius, which excuses a slight sacrifice of the smoothness of skin that belongs to perfect Beauty. In women, however, we apply a pure and strict æsthetic standard, wherefore all wrinkles are regarded as regrettable inroads on Personal Beauty. Old women, of course, form an exception, because in them we no longer look for youthful Beauty, and are therefore gratified at the sight of wrinkles and folds as stereotyped forms of expression bespeaking a life rich in experiences, and associated with the veneration due to old age. Such wrinkles are characteristic but not beautiful; and it may be stated, by the way, that Alison’s whole book on Taste is vitiated by the ever-recurring argument in which he forgets that we may take a personal and even an artistic interest in a thing which is characteristic without being beautiful.