humanfaculty4 - page 264 of 305

expect to find that any groups of twenty or thirty men of the same class would yield

composites bearing a considerable likeness to one another. In proof that this is the case, I

exhibit three other composites: the one is made from the first 28 portraits of the 57, the

second from the last 27, and the third is made from 36 portraits taken indiscriminately out

of the 57. It will be observed that all the four composites are closely alike.

I will now show a few typical portraits I selected out of 82 male portraits of a different

series of consumptive male patients; they were those that had more or less of a particular

wan look, that I wished to elicit The selected cases were about 18 in number, and from

these I took 12, rejecting about six as having some marked peculiarity that did not conform

well with the remaining 12. The result is a very striking face, thoroughly ideal and artistic,

and singularly beautiful. It is, indeed most notable how beautiful all composites are.

Individual peculiarities are all irregularities, and the composite is always regular.

I show a composite of 15 female faces, also of consumptive patients, that gives

somewhat the same aspect of the disease; also two others of only 6 in each, that have in

consequence less of an ideal look, but which are still typical. I have here several other

typical faces in my collection of composites; they are all serviceable as illustrations of this

memoir, but, medically speaking, they are only provisional results.

I am indebted to Lieutenant Leonard Darwin, R.E., for an interesting series of

negatives of officers and privates of the Royal Engineers. Here is a composite of 12

officers; here is one of 30 privates. I then thought it better to select from the latter the men

that came from the southern counties, and to again make a further selection of 1 x from

these, on the principle already explained. Here is the result. It is very interesting to note

the stamp of culture and refinement on the composite officer, and the honest and vigorous

but more homely features of the privates. The combination of these two, officers and

privates together, gives a very effective physiognomy.

Let it be borne in mind that existing cartes-de-visite are almost certain to be useless.

Among dozens of them it is bard to find three that fulfil the conditions of similarity of

aspect and of shade. The negatives have to be made on purpose. I use a repeating back and

a quarter plate, and get two good-sized heads on each plate, and of a scale that never gives

less than four-tenths of an inch between the pupils of the eyes and the mouth. It is only the

head that can be used, as more distant parts, even the ears, become blurred hopelessly.

It will be asked, of what use can all this be to ordinary photographers, even granting

that it may be of scientific value in ethnological research, in inquiries into the