humanfaculty4 - page 32 of 305

Inquiries into Human Faculty

Lieutenant Darwin, R.E. The individuals from whom this composite was

made, which has not come out as clearly as I should have liked, differed

considerably in feature, and they came from various parts of England. The

points they had in common were the bodily and mental qualifications

required for admission into their select corps, and their generally British

descent. The result is a composite having an expression of considerable

vigour, resolution, intelligence, and frankness. I have exhibited both this

and others that were made respectively from the officers, from the whole

collection of privates—thirty-six in number—and from that selected

portion of them that is utilised in the present instance.

This face and the qualities it connotes probably gives a clue to the

direction in which the stock of the English race might most easily be

improved. It is the essential notion of a race that there should be some

ideal typical form from which the individuals may deviate in all

directions, but about which they chiefly cluster, and towards which their

descendants will continue to cluster. The easiest direction in which a race

can be improved is towards that central type, because nothing new has to

be sought out. It is only necessary to encourage as far as practicable the

breed of those who conform most nearly to the central type, and to

restrain as far as may be the breed of those who deviate widely from it.

Now there can hardly be a more appropriate method of discovering the

central physiognomical type of any race or group than that of composite

As a contrast to the composite of the Royal Engineers, I give those of

two of the coarse and low types of face found among the criminal classes.

The photographs from which they were made are taken from two large

groups. One are those of men undergoing severe sentences for murder and

other crimes connected with violence; the other of thieves. They were

reprints from those taken by order of the prison authorities for purposes of

identification. I was allowed to obtain copies for use in my inquiries by

the kind permission of Sir Edmund Du Cane, H.M. Director of Prisons.

The originals of these and their components have frequently been

exhibited. It is unhappily a fact that fairly distinct types of criminals