132 THE GROWTH OF THE BRAIN. 



with the group having the greatest stature ; at the 

 same time there is no doubt that the tall persons here 

 taken as a standard belonged to a less favoured social 

 class. There is every reason to think that the favoured 

 classes in the community will have a brain-weight 

 superior to that of the class from which all our ordinary 

 averages have been derived, and the comparison there- 

 fore fails to be exact, so that although there is no 

 doubt about the facts which have been given, their 

 interpretation must be postponed. To Table 28, 

 based on cranial capacities of eminent men, the same 

 argument applies. In this table there is also introduced 

 a series of observations on the cranial capacity of 

 murderers. This series is of interest in connection with 

 the attempt to determine whether the criminal has 

 bodily peculiarities which mark him. As will be seen, 

 the criminals are very close to the modern Parisian in 

 their cranial capacity, and even somewhat surpass them, 

 though falling distinctly below the distinguished men 

 with whom they are compared. It would appear from 

 this that the criminals in question had been mainly 

 derived from the same class that furnished records with 

 which they are here compared. There exist no 

 measurements either on the brains or skulls of eminent 

 women, and the differences due to sex, which have been 

 so much discussed in other groups, are therefore entirely 

 wanting in this one. From these facts it. is plain that 

 the brains of eminent men are the heaviest, and their 

 skulls the most capacious, but we know little of 

 the brain-weight and cranial capacity of their neigh- 

 bours men successful in business and professional life 

 who, though not distinguished, grew up and lived 

 under like conditions. As far as it goes, the evidence 

 only shows that the members of the less fortunate social 

 classes have the smaller brain-weight An emphasis of 



