126 



THE GROWTH OF THE BRAIN. 



while other microcephalies have possessed more com- 

 mand over spoken language, and still others have made 

 use of deaf-mute signs as a means of communication. 

 The senses are often acute and the motor activity good, 

 and in such cases, of course, there is a rudimentary 

 intellectual life. In other words, this class represents 

 individuals with diminished intelligence, but even a very 

 small brain-weight, as is shown in the case just cited, is 

 not incompatible with the performance of simple mental 

 processes ; at the same time it cannot be assumed that 

 these individuals were sufficiently well organised to 

 make life possible for them if they had not been 

 specially protected. In every group of this table of 

 Marchand the female brain-weight is distinctly less 

 than that of the male. In tabular form the facts 

 appear as follows : 



TABLE 25. THE WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN IN MICROCEPHALICS. 

 (Condensed from Marchand?) 



In each of the three groups taken the average weight for the 

 females is less than that for the males. 



Since in these groups the two sexes are presumptively 

 on a par mentally, having their intellectual processes 

 very much reduced, it is certainly curious that this 

 common mental level should still be accompanied by a 

 higher brain-weight in the males than in the females. 

 The usual argument assumes that the simplest psychic 

 powers are, as indicated in the table, correlated with a 



