BEAUTY AND BRAIN

It has been stated already that, anatomically considered, the forehead is not a part of the face but of the cranium. From an artistic and popular point of view, however, the forehead is a part of the face, and a most important one. Modern taste fully endorses the ancient law of facial proportion, which makes the height of the forehead equal to the length of the nose, and to the distance from the tip of the nose to the tip of the chin. “Foreheads villainous low” are objectionable, because associated with a vulgar unintellectual type of man, and too vividly suggestive of our simian ancestors. Foreheads abnormally high, though preferable to the other extreme, displease, because they violate the law of facial proportion. We excuse them in men, because they are commonly expressive of intellectual power. But in women a high forehead is always objectionable, because it gives them a masculine appearance. Hence Romantic Love, which cannot exist without sexual contrasts, and which aims at making woman a perfect embodiment of the laws of Beauty, eliminates girls with too high foreheads. Yet at the command of Fashion thousands of maidens deliberately prevent men from falling in love with them by combing back their hair and giving their foreheads a masculine appearance, instead of coyly hiding it under a fringe or “bang.”

The fact that the feminine forehead, though more perpendicular than the masculine at the lower part, slants backward in its upper part in a more pronounced angle, is another reason why women should cover up this part of their forehead, which Sexual Selection has not yet succeeded in moulding into perfect shape. For the receding forehead is universally recognised as a sign of inferior culture. Everybody knows what is meant by Camper’s facial angle, which is formed by a horizontal line drawn from the opening of the ear to the nasal spine, and a perpendicular line touching the most prominent parts of the forehead and front teeth. In adult Europeans Camper’s angle rarely exceeds 85 degrees. The average in the Caucasian race is 80°; in the yellow races 75°; in the negro 60° to 70°; in the gorilla 31°. In antique Greek heads the angle is sometimes over 90°. Says Camper: “If I cause the facial line to fall in front, I have an antique head; if I incline it backwards, I have the head of a negro; if I cause it to incline still further, I have the head of a monkey; inclined still more, I have that of a dog, and, lastly, that of a goose.”

It appears, however, that this angle has more value as a test of beauty than as an absolute gauge of intellect. Generally speaking, there is no doubt a correlation between a bulging forehead and a superior intellect; but individual exceptions to this rule are not infrequent. Nor is it at all difficult to account for them. For intellectual power does not depend so much on the size and shape of the skull as on the convoluted structure of the brain.

Our brain consists of two kinds of matter—the white, which is inside, and the gray, which covers it. The white substance is a complicated telegraphic network for conveying messages which are sent from the external gray cells. It has been proved, by comparing the brains of man and various animals, that the amount of intelligence depends not so much on the absolute size of the brain, as on the abundance of this gray matter. And, what is of extreme importance from a cosmetic point of view, the gray cells are increased in number, not by an addition to the absolute size or circumference of the brain, but by a system of furrows and convolutions which increase the surface lining of the brain without enlarging its visible mass. For the benefit of those who have never seen a human brain, it may be very roughly compared to the convoluted kernel of an English walnut.

Wherein lies the Æsthetic significance of this mode of cerebral evolution? It prevents our head from becoming too large. Have you ever considered why infants appear so ugly to every one but their mothers? One of the principal reasons is that their heads are twice as large in proportion to the rest of the body as those of adults. A child’s stature is equal to four times the height of its head, an adult’s to eight heads. If our heads continued to grow larger as our minds expanded, from generation to generation, all the proportions of human stature would ultimately be violated. But thanks to the peculiar mode of cerebral evolution just described, Romantic Love may continue to “select” in accordance with our present standards of beauty, without thereby favouring the survival of lower intellectual types.

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.

In youth, while the skin is firm and elastic, the wrinkles on the forehead or around the eyes, caused by a frown or smile, pass away, leaving no more trace than the ripples on the surface of a lake. With advancing age the skin becomes looser and less elastic, so that frequent repetition of those movements which produce a fold in the skin finally leaves an indelible mark on the furrowed countenance. Woman’s skin, being commonly better “padded” with fat than man’s, is not so liable to wrinkles, provided attention is paid to the laws of health. Mantegazza suggests that the simplest antidote for wrinkles would be to distend the folded skin again by fattening up. The daily use of good soap and slight friction helps to ward off wrinkles by keeping the facial muscles toned up and the skin elastic.

The (voluntary) mobility of the skin of the forehead, to which we owe our wrinkles, affords an interesting illustration of the way in which facial muscles, once “useful,” have been modified for mere purposes of expression. “Many monkeys have, and frequently use, the power of largely moving their scalps up and down.” This may be of use in shaking off leaves, flies, rain, etc. But man, with his covered head, needs no such protection; hence most of us have lost the power of moving our scalps. A correspondent wrote to Darwin, however, of a youth who could pitch several heavy books from his head by the movement of the scalp alone; and many other similar cases are on record, attesting our simian relationship. But lower down on the forehead, our skin has universally retained the power of movement, as shown in frowning and the expression of various emotions.

At first sight it is somewhat difficult to understand why meditation should wrinkle the skin; but Darwin explains it by concluding that frowning (which, oft repeated, results in wrinkles) “is not the expression of simple reflection, however profound, or of attention, however close, but of something difficult or displeasing encountered in a train of thought or in action. Deep reflection can, however, seldom be long carried on without some difficulty, so that it will generally be accompanied by a frown.”

Fashionable women sometimes endeavour (unsuccessfully) to distend the skin and remove wrinkles by pasting court-plaster on certain spots in the face. But the repulsive fashion of wearing patches of court-plaster all over the face as an ornament (“beauty-spots!”), doubtless had its origin in the desire of some aristocratic dame to conceal pimples or other skin blemishes. At one time women even submitted to the fashion of pasting on the face and bosom paper flies, fleas, and other loathsome creatures.

The African monkeys who held an indignation meeting when they first heard of Darwin’s theory of the descent of man, had probably just been reading a history of human Fashions.