The choice of a mate.

  • Anthony Ludovici
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details
    424/546 (page 394)
    Only one finger’s width separates the lowest ribs from the point of the hip, the middle segment of the face is the broadest, and the thorax dominates the trunk. These two, says MacAuliffe, “ are the leading types of hu manity ”, and in them the preponderance of one feature does not imply the amorphousness of any other. The third type is “ free from hollows and bumps ” (i.e. sleek). In the female “ the hips are broad, high, the shoulders narrow, and the thorax squat. . . . The jaws are firm and the lips everted.” . . . The modelling of the body is softened by the adipose covering ; the lower segment of the face is widest, and the abdomen dominates the thorax. In the male ample curves reveal no corners or bumps. Sleek ness with suppleness is typical. The form is attractive and harmonious throughout. Neither male nor female of this third type is pyknic. The fourth, which MacAuliffe says is very rare in Greek anti quity, is the type towards which “ civilized mankind as a whole seems to be tending ”. The cranium dominates an orthognathous face of medium size. The body is harmoniously proportioned, and, in the finest examples, exhibits good muscular and visceral development. “ No matter what may have been said to the contrary,” says MacAuliffe, “ great intellectual power is usually associated with a finely-built and well-modelled body.” These four ideal types “ are endowed with cellular structures which respond adequately to environment. Stasis is reduced to a minimum and they reveal the fewest deformities.” They enjoy a maximum of resilience, and hardly change from adulthood to death. With sound instincts, they generally achieve superior adaptation, and their decline, which is but a progressive diminu tion of activity, usually culminates in a rapid end. 1 In three other less-highly evolved types—the primitive , the regressive and the morphologically irregular types—in whom traits overcome in the first four reappear—MacAuliffe finds the crimi nals, the constitutionally morbid, and mentally unstable. In the latter of these three groups are included equivalents to Kretschmer’s schizoid-asthenic and cycloid-pyknic, which MacAuliffe calls the Flat and the Round type respectively. The first, a dehydrated (dry) type, is more elastic and eco nomically organized. It is thin, active, sensitive, quicker in 1 Ibid., pp. 38-99.