74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



describing " the dome of thought, the temple of the soul." In the 

 gorilla, the same lines, being inclined to each other, are united by about 

 a quarter of a circle, nearly circumscribing the cranial and mental ca- 

 pacity of that venerable progenitor of ours. In the goat, the same 

 lines, being still more inclined, are united by about an eighth of a cir- 

 cle, giving verge and room enough for his caprices. And so on to the 

 least part of a circle, representing the least cerebral and mental ca- 

 pacity. 



The rule of comparison here indicated will apply perfectly to each 

 one of the ten profiles illustrating the scale of development in the 

 principal figure of the article in question ; but that artificial angle of 

 the frontal line of the face to the dorsal line of the body will not 

 apply at all to intelligent human beings, except in the case of the Flat- 

 heads, whose peculiar conformation has been produced by a too rigid 

 application of it in their plastic infancy. In man as Nature made him, 

 the front line of the facial angle can form an angular relation to the axis 

 of the body through the base-line of the facial angle, and in no other 

 way. At the top of the head the front and dorsal lines can only 

 meet in a curve, and there they form what may more properly be 

 called the cranial arch than the facial angle. The facial angle of Cam- 

 per is truly an angle and truly facial, but the proposed substitute for 

 it is neither. Nature really does form angles of varying acuteness 

 and obtuseness to the base-line of the face at its two extremities — 

 very acute angles between it and the front line of the face at its an- 

 terior extremity, and very obtuse angles between it and the line of 

 the spinal column at its posterior extremity, in the lower vertebrates, 

 and almost right angles at the same points in human beings. Those 

 formed by the front and base lines of the face constitute the facial 

 angle of the upper part of the face, and indicate the degrees of intel- 

 lectual and artistic development : those formed by the base-line of 

 the face and the axial line of the neck constitute the facial angle of the 

 lower part of the face, and indicate the degrees of affectional and pas- 

 sional development. 



To do full justice to the article we have stopped to consider, we 

 must not slight the assertion on which the author bases his objection 

 to Camper's facial angle and his preference for his own, namely, that 

 " the base of the skull does not keep in harmony " with the front of 

 the face in the changes that occur through the stages of vertebrate 

 evolution, but that it " varies irregularly," while the " axis of the 

 body " does not. A little examination will show this to be a great 

 mistake. While the lines representing the front face and dorsal 

 surfaces are "effecting a grand variation of 180°, or the half of a 

 circle " — beginning with the lowest vertebrate, in which those lines 

 are "in direct line" with each other, and ending with the highest 

 vertebrate, in which the}^ are parallel with each other — the line 

 representing the base of the face, extending along the floor of the 



