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.