Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-09-30
new LIGHT ON CHINS.
By Frederic ]. Haskin.

| Probably the most widely known and
accepted tenet of the physiogonomists is
! that the chin is reliable index to power
of will. The indomitable hero of the pop
! ular novel is invariabl endowed with a
prominent chin. In the modern school
| Of magazine Illustration the chin is the
most important ornament of facial archi-
| lecture. Everybody knows that ma n
! with big, strong chin is a man to look
| out for.
/ Now, along come several anthropolo-
gists, of the greatest weight and repu-
tation, who have spent their lives an
alyzing the human physiognomy and trac-
| ing its evolution to say that this popular
| belief in the Importance of chins is all
| bosh. For example, DIR. Ales Hrdlicka
of the National Museum, who is Uncle
! Sans chief anthropologiSt, says the chin
| is useful as lever for masticating food
and talking; but that it proves abso-
| 1utely nothing about your ability or dis
position
DIR. Hrdlicka is willing to acknowledge
the significance of other features of the
. human head. The upper skull, for ex-
| ample. it indicates the size and shape
! but the chin has no anatomical connec-
| tons which give it any Importance as
, an index to character.
Sir Ray Lancaster, London anthro-
| poogist. joins the American authority
in this assault
Chin an Indication upon the chin
Of Power of Will. Of Of ' will rI'' now ,,o"
and Henri Boileau of France adds his
| voice to the now international discussion,
expressing the same opinion, and eX
planning the evolution of the chin in a
way that leaves it quite an insignificant
feature.
This evolution of the chin is, in fact
the pemmican of the whole argument.
Prehistoric man, according to all the re-
MAINS that have ever been found of him,
had no chin al all He had powerful
jaws, and enough teeth for two modern
men. but the chin proper was lacking.
Tracing the descent of man, accord
ing to the Darwinian theory, we find
him gradually acquiring chin as he
evolved toward a higher type, until
finally the chin finds its ideal develop
ment in the modern civilized man. The
widespread belief that the chin is an
Indication of desirable qualities is I'M
doubtedly founded upon this scientific
fact that it has grown with the ad-
vance of civilization.
x j.
But the modern anthropologist pro-
ceeds to offer several explanations of
this chin de-
Explanations Offered velopme
of Chin Development. Of all iI real
significance. The most interesting of
these, put forward by Henri Boileau of
France, is that the human chin is sec
ondary sexual characteristic, evolved
for it's esthetic value in the mating
process Translated from Darwinian
into plain English, this means that
woman, even when she lived in a cave
and wore fig leaf, had as strong
liking for the broad and beautiful chin
as she has today. True, there were not
many chins to choose from back in
paleolithic times, but, nevertheless, she
always chose the cave man that had
the nearest thing to a chin. Thus were
brought into the world many little cave
jewellers with rudimentary chins. and
the social advantage which this con-
ferred insured the propagation of the
most chinful type.
Another purely physiological explana-
ton of the civilized chin, offered by