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.
Among the more highly-organized races more deviations from the original typical patterns occur than among the lower-organized—because the minds of civilized men are more impressible than those of savages. Travellers have always observed that nothing struck them more on visiting a savage nation than the great uniformity of feature, presenting so great a contrast to the diversities among civilized nations; so that while a superficial observer would suppose it to be impossible to characterize the latter by any uniform description, he finds no difficulty in expressing the characteristics of the former.