The value of the cephalic index was for many years taken for granted in all ethnological treatises; and many anthropologists still lay great stress upon it.[1516] But there has lately been a reaction.[1517] Professor Sergi[1518] scoffs at ‘the old and discredited method of the cephalic index, which only indicates artificial and conventional distinctions’, and tells us that ‘it is the forms alone that we have to take into consideration’,[1519] and that ‘indices may serve to approximate the most diverse forms and to separate the most homogeneous’.[1520] This last remark is unquestionably true; as Huxley said, ‘in nine cases out of ten you may diagnose an Australian skull [among other dolichocephalic skulls] with certainty.’[1521] Nevertheless the cephalic index, used with discrimination, retains the value which Broca, Beddoe, Collignon, Turner, and other anthropologists ascribe to it; and those who are familiar with Sergi’s writings will not be surprised to learn that, when it suits his purpose, he lays great stress upon the distinction between dolichocephalic and brachycephalic skulls.[1522] He considerably modifies his view when he affirms the truism that ‘we cannot accept the evidence of the cephalic index when that evidence is contradicted by other important facts’;[1523] but if any one who has a taste for ethnology will spend a few days in walking through the department of Jura or the mountainous parts of Auvergne, the contrast between the round heads which he will see everywhere and the totally different type which he has been accustomed to in his own country will convince him that the cephalic index has been ‘discredited’ in vain.[1524] Anthropologists are, however, becoming convinced that the labour which has been spent upon calculating the averages of tables of widely different indices has borne little fruit.[1525]
When we consider the cranial forms, apart from measurements, we find the same lack of unanimity. According to Sergi,[1526] ‘the _norma verticalis_, or view from above,’ is ‘the most important of all’. According to Rolleston,[1527] ‘the _norma lateralis_, or profile view of a skull is the most important.’ The present tendency, however, of British anthropologists is to follow the Italian professor.