The flat, irregular nose of savages and semi-civilised peoples, with its
visible nostrils and imperfectly developed bridge, being intermediate
between the ape’s nose and our own, we are naturally led to infer that
the nose has been gradually developed into the shape now regarded as
most perfect by good judges of Beauty. To what are we indebted for this
favourable change—to Natural or to Sexual Selection? In other words, is
the present perfected shape of the nose of any use to us, or is it
purely ornamental?
It appears that both these laws have acted in subtle combination to
improve our nasal organ. The nose is a sort of funnel for warming the
air on its way to the sensitive lungs. In cold latitudes a long nose
would therefore be an advantage favoured by Natural Selection; and it is
noteworthy that in general the flat-nosed peoples live in warm climes.
There are exceptions, however, notably the Esquimaux, showing that this
hypothesis does not entirely cover the facts.
Let us examine, therefore, the second function of the nasal organ. The
external nose is a sort of filter for keeping organic impurities out of
the lungs. At the entrance of the nostrils there are a number of fine
hairs which serve to keep out the dust. If any particles manage to get
beyond this first fortress, they are liable to be arrested by the rows
of more minute, microscopic hairs, or _cilia_, which line the mucous
membrane and keep up a constant downward movement, by means of which
dusty intruders are expelled and the air filtered. Esquimaux living in
snowfields, and savages in the forests and grass-carpeted meadows, do
not need these filters so much as we do in our dusty cities and along
dusty country roads; hence their noses have remained more like those of
the arboreal apes, while ours have grown larger, so as to yield a larger
surface of sifting hairs and cilia. When we think of the dusty American
prairies and the African and Asian deserts, can we wonder, accordingly,
that the American Indians, as well as the nomadic Arabs and Jews, have
such immense noses? The theory seems fanciful, if not grotesque; but
perhaps there is more in it than appears at first sight.
Even if both these hypotheses should prove untenable, there is a third
consideration which alone suffices to account for the development of the
European nose. The nose has a most important _musico-philological_
function. The language of savages often consists of only a few hundred
words, while ours is so complicated that it requires the co-operation of
the vocal cords, and the cavities of the mouth and the nose to produce
the countless modifications of speech and song which make us listen with
so much pleasure to an eloquent speaker or a great singer. The subject
is far too complicated with anatomical details to be fully explained
here, and the reader must be referred to a full discussion (not from the
evolutionary point of view, however) to Professor Georg Hermann von
Meyer’s elaborate treatise on _The Organs of Speech_, chap. iii.
A few points, however, must be noted here. The nasal air-passage, “with
its two narrow openings and intermediate greater width, possesses the
general form of a resonator, and there can be no doubt but that it has a
corresponding influence, and that the tones with which the air passing
through it vibrates are strengthened by its resonance. The larger the
nasal cavity the more powerful the resonance, and, consequently, the
reinforcement experienced by the tone.... In consequence of the
peculiarity of the walls of the nasal cavity, it appears that sounds
uttered with the nasal resonance, particularly the nasal vowels, are
fuller and more ample than the same sounds when strengthened by the
resonance of the cavity of the mouth. The general impression of fulness
and richness conveyed by the French language arises from its wealth in
nasal vowels; and it is for this reason that second-rate tragic actors
like to give a nasal resonance to all the vowels in the pathetic
speeches of their heroic parts.”
Further, it is of great importance to bear in mind “_that the resonance
of the nasal cavity also plays a part in the formation of non-nasal
articulate sounds,_” appearing here as a mere reinforcement of the
resonance of the cavity of the mouth, and free from the nasal twang.
Indeed, paradoxical as it may seem, an infallible way to make our speech
sound “nasal” is to keep the air out of the nose by clasping it tightly;
whereas if the nasal passage remains open the nasal twang is replaced by
an agreeable resonance. What could more forcibly illustrate the
importance of a well-developed nose?
Now there are several groups of muscles attached to the lower cartilages
of the nose,—parts which are imperfectly developed in apes and negroes.
The constant exercise of these, during many generations, in the service
of speech, in expressing several emotions, and in heavy breathing,
suffice to account, on accepted physiological principles, for the
gradual enlargement of the resonant tube which we call the nose.
So much for Natural or Utilitarian Selection. But Sexual Selection or
Romantic Love plays also a most important _rôle_ in the development of
the nose. The quotations from Pascal and Schopenhauer made at the
beginning of this chapter show that the efficacy of Sexual Selection was
recognised long before Darwin had coined the term. As soon as a refined
æsthetic taste appears, it rejects ugly forms of the nose. It rejects,
for instance, open, visible nostrils, because they are a scavenging
apparatus, unæsthetic to behold, though the savage, having no taste, is
not thus offended. It gives the preference, in the second place, to the
long nose, on musical grounds, because its owner has a more sonorous
speech. It scorns the snub-nose because of its simian suggestiveness,
and dislikes the excessively large and aquiline nose because it is an
exaggerated form, which has passed beyond the delicate dimensions and
subtle curves of beauty.