[Footnote: Abstract of a lecture delivered before the Franklin Institute
of Philadelphia, Jan. 20.1881, in exposition of principles laid down in
The Hypothesis of Evolution, New Haven, 1870, p. 31.]
By E. D. COPE.
The ability to read character in the form of the human face and figure
is a gift possessed by comparatively few persons, although most
people interpret, more or less correctly, the salient points of human
expression. The transient appearances of the face reveal temporary
phases of feeling which are common to all men; but the constant
qualities of the mind should be expressed, if at all, in the permanent
forms of the executive instrument of the mind, the body. To detect the
peculiarities of the mind by external marks has been the aim of the
physiognomist of all times; but it is only in the light of modern
evolutionary science that much progress in this direction can be made.
The mind, as a function of part of the body, partakes of its perfections
and its defects, and exhibits parallel types of development. Every
peculiarity of the body has probably some corresponding significance in
the mind; and the causes of the former are the remoter causes of the
latter. Hence, before a true physiognomy can be attempted, the origin
of the features of the face and general form must be known. Not that
a perfect physiognomy will ever be possible. A mental constitution so
complex as that of man cannot be expected to exhibit more than its
leading features in the body; but these include, after all, most of what
it is important for us to be able to read, from a practical point of
view.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Section of skull of adult orang-outang _(Simia
satyrus)_. FIG. 2.--Section of skull of young orang, showing relatively
shorter jaws and more prominent cerebral region.]
The present essay will consider the probable origin of the structural
points which constitute the permanent expression. These may be divided
into three heads, viz.: