SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY OF MAN. 109 



supposed to constitute beauty in any reasonable 

 acceptation of the word. We quote his own lan- 

 guage on this subject : — " It is certain that no such 

 head was ever met with ; and I cannot conceive any 

 such should have occurred among the Greeks, since 

 neither the Egyptians, from whom they probably 

 descended, nor the Persians, nor the Greeks them- 

 selves, ever exhibit such a formation on their 

 medals, when they are representing the portrait of 

 any real character. Hence the ancient model of 

 beauty does not exist in nature, but is a thing of 

 imaginary creation ; it is what Winkelman calls 

 ' beau ideal' " 



The truth appears to be, that every nation forms 

 its ideas of beauty from that conformation which is 

 peculiar to itself. An ample facial angle was cha- 

 racteristic of the Grecian countenance, and this they 

 exaggerated in their representations of superior na- 

 tures. It may be questioned, however, whether they 

 meant to designate, by the immense forehead, the 

 perfection of intellect or that of corporeal beauty. 



Another method of shewing the proportions of the 

 cranium and face is, by making a vertical section of 

 the head. But a view of these proportions in man 

 and brutes will prove that no conclusions relative 

 to intellectual powers can be drawn from them. 

 The area of the section of the cranium in man is 

 nearly four times as large as that of the face; in 

 the orang-outang it is three times ; twice in the 

 small prehensile-tailed monkeys ; and nearly equal 

 in baboons and carnivorous animals, excepting the 



