Ever since the days of ancient Greek philosophy ingenious attempts have
been made to find a special meaning for this or that particular form of
the ear. According to Aristotle, a long ear indicates a good memory,
whereas modern physiognomists incline to the opinion that a long ear
shows a man’s mental relationship to a certain unjustly-maligned animal.
Small ears, Lavater thinks, are a sign of an active mind, while a deep
shell indicates a thirst for knowledge.
As a matter of fact, the ears have no connection whatever with
intellectual or emotional expression, except that a well-shaped ear
indicates in a general way that its possessor comes off a stock in which
the laws of cosmetic hygiene have been observed during many generations.
To many of the lower animals the ears are a means of emotional
expression. What, for instance, could be more expressive and droll than
the way a dog expresses mild surprise or expectation by pricking up his
ears? Or what a more certain sign of viciousness in a horse than the
drawing back of the ears?—a movement of which Darwin has found the
reason in the fact that all animals that fight with their teeth retract
their ears to protect them; whence, through habit and association, it
comes that they draw them back whenever a fighting mood comes over them.
Man, on the other hand, never uses his ears for emotional expression,
because they are the least mobile part of the body. Now form is merely
crystallised expression: and the absence of special movements for
emotional expression necessarily prevents individual alterations
indicative of character. Hence the absurdity of trying to use the ears
as a basis for physiognomic distinctions.