The reader will probably have been led from the nomenclature to inquire
whether the assertion that certain forms of Nose are justly named after
certain nations might not be extended further? and whether every nation
has not a characteristic Nose?
The reply to these questionings would be in the affirmative. Every
nation has a characteristic Nose; and the less advanced the nation is in
civilization, the more general and perceptible is the characteristic
form. While nations are in their infancy, and the mass of the people are
uninformed, the features receiving no impressions from within, take the
form impressed from without, and follow the national type. If one
uniform state of things—of government, climate, and habits—continue,
without education, generation may succeed generation, and the original
facial type of the race will remain. If, however, the national
circumstances alter (still without general education) the national
features follow the type impressed by those circumstances. We have
appealed to many instances of these simultaneous national changes when
describing the different forms of Noses prevalent at different periods
of English history.
The existence of such typical features has always been recognized, and
ethnologists have founded classifications of the Human Race on their
peculiarities.
It is an additional general proof of the truth of Nasology, that the
most highly-organized and intellectual races possess the highest forms
of Noses, and those which are more barbarous and uncivilized possess
Noses proportionately Snub and depressed, approaching the form of the
snouts of the lower animals, which seldom or ever project beyond the
jaws. Thus the Caucasian races, denominated by Dr. Prichard Oval-headed,
which comprise decidedly the most perfect specimens of the human race,
are characterized by a Nose Roman or Greek; while the lower divisions,
the Mongolian or Pyramidal-headed, and the Negro or Prognathous
(protruding-jawed)—than among which no lower and more debased specimens
of humanity subsist—have Noses Celestial or Snub, as in the Tartar and
Chinese, the Negro and Hottentot nations.
In the Caucasian, or Elliptical-headed, types of the Human Race, the
Nose averages one-third of the faces.
In the Mongolian, or Pyramidal-headed, the Nose averages from one-fourth
to one-fifth of the face.
In the Negro, or Prognathous-jawed, it is the same, and the nostrils are
conspicuous, as in brutes.
When hypotheses thus assist and strengthen each other, we gain an
assurance of their truth and accuracy which is wanting where they are
seemingly contradictory, and which would have been wanting to Nasology,
had it contradicted the observations of philosophers so careful and able
as Dr. Prichard and his fellow-labourers in the field of ethnology.
Happily this is not the case, and Nasology may claim to stand as the
handmaid of ethnologists striving to discover the characteristics of
nations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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