232 Berry and Bilchner: 



shape 01- size of the head," and concli^des finally that " vei-y bril- 

 liant men may possibly have a very slightly larger liead than their 

 fellows, but taking the general population there is really a very* 

 insignificant association between size of head and ability. For 

 practical purposes it seems impossible, either in the case of excep- 

 tionally able men or in the bulk of tlie jtoiuibition, to pass any 

 judgment from size of head to ability or vice versa." 



In this same paper Pearson also states " we have found . . . 

 a very definite statement made tliat able men have large heads. We 

 cannot find, however, that there are really reliable statistics, ade- 

 quately treated, which in any way prove this general statement. 

 It is perfectly true that the professional classes in this country have 

 a rather larger head than the liand-working classes, and tbe former 

 are rather more intellectual. . . Dr. W. K. Macdonoll has 



recently shown that the head of the Cambridge undergraduate i.s 

 larger than the head of the criminal population, but any deduction 

 from a mixture of these two classes (that ability is correlated with 

 size of head) would be wholly misleading." 



Without multiplying instances further, it is clear from tlic fore- 

 going extracts that there is much divergence of opini(ui on the 

 interesting point as to whether there is any relationshi]) between 

 size of head and intelligence; and, speaking Inoadly. the disputants 

 to the problem divide themselves into two camps, the biometricians 

 with no medical training, and the biologists with a corresponding 

 lack of mathematical skill. The former see little or no correlation 

 ])etween the two things, size of head and intelligence, whilst the 

 latter seek to establish some slight connection between the two. 



For ourselves we approach the problem from the standpoint of 

 the ti-ained medical man. with a knowledge of the human neurological 

 fact(jr, and just sufficient mathematics to appi-eeiate Pearson's 

 dogma that " statistical en(|uiry is not a field for guess-work and 

 elementary arithmetic ; there is a mathematical science of statistics 

 which must be learnt, and papers dealing numerically with anthro- 

 pometric and craniometiic data, which do not now apply tlii.s 

 theory, are simply outside the field of science.'' 



The 355 criminals with which this investigation deals were, as 

 already stated, confined in IVntridge and Melbourne Gaols. They 

 are all Caucasians and adult males. The olwervations which wo 

 have recoi-ded upon them fall into two categories, wliich may be liest 

 described as personal aiid iraniometrical. 



Of the personal observations we have recorded the age and 

 till' nature of the crime. AVe were, for obvious scientific reasons, 

 most anxious to obtain also tlii' height and bodily weight, but tliis 

 was, as it turned out, <|uite im])ossible. 



