I was looking at my two year old son the other day, and noticed that with his big brown puppy dog eyes, he is the epitomy of honesty and goodness. I recall a proverb mentioning something about the eyes being a window or mirror of the soul, and it suddenly struck me as peculiar that generally, big round eyes are thought to be honest, while villians always have squinty, small, beady eyes. How does that happen? Are innocent children all born with innocent looking eyes, and then as their personality changes their eyes begin to look evil? Or do children destined to be mean come complete with beady eyes, even as babies? Can I count on my son to be a good person in the future, knowing that he has honest eyes now?
Thanks for your response-
-Curwin’s Wife
All children are evil. Their parents are just blind to the fact. 
All children are cute. It’s a survival trait of the human species. We recognise those traits found in our young as being innofensive, warm, loving and in need of nurturing. Therefore we assume that any of these features found in an adult, or for that matter in another animal or stuffed doll, means the bearer is trustworthy, warm and loving. No particular reason to believe it.
The ‘big eyes’ are mostly due to the fact that the heads of children are larger in relation to their body size than those of adults, and the eyes are bigger in relation t the heads. Added to this the corner folds, wrinkles etc. haven’t begun to form yet so the eyes appear large.
My personal theory on why you perceive what you perceive as ‘evil looking’ eyes are the result of two processes.
Firstly experience, both real and ‘Disney inspired’ has taught you that evil people have certain facial expressions, including a ‘hardness around the mouth’ or fixed expression, and small or screwed-up eyes (The Wicked Witch in Snow White, Jaffar in Alladin and so on). If you think about it for a second these are actually features of concerted thought. People are designated evil not because they are hurting anyone, but because as children most of our painful experiences of others come from people more concerned about other affairs than about us, hence being uncaring. If you think about it someone who is maliciously hurting someone or something will probably have wide open eyes due to adrenaline rush, and a smiling or open drooling mouth. It’s all very childhood oriented.
The second reason for small eyes being seen as ‘evil’ is because when you look into the eyes of someone you like your pupils expand. This is why lovers stare into each others eyes to get a buzz, and why we have the expression ‘bedroom eyes’. Large pupils are a sign of love and trust. Conversely looking into the eyes of someone you feel uncomfortable around will cause your pupils to contract. This leads us to associate wide pupils with innocence and trusting.
There is no good reason for believing that large eyes mean a good heart. The inability to filter out all this emotional baggage in later life has led many people being conned by people with large, soulful eyes. Similarly many kind-hearted good people had small squinty eyes.