OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 215 



and if weight of brain be any criterion of mental power, we certainly 

 should expect one of greater weight than 53| oz. In the same way, 

 we are surprised to find the great simplicity of a part (the parieto- 

 temporal region) which we are told is usually complicated in European 

 races. According to Wagner, a complicated — which with him is 

 synonymous with a highly^-developed — brain is of the same nature 

 througliout; but here is a marked exception to the rule, if rule it be. 

 Comparing this brain to some of known men figured by Wagner, we 

 have little hesitation in declaring it decidedly more simple than those 

 of Gauss and Derichlet, mathematicians, and Fuchs, a physician ; 

 rather more simple than that of Hermann, a philologist, and much 

 in the style of that of a celebrated naturalist, whose name is not 

 given. 



It must, of course, be admitted that a certain amount of cerebral 

 matter is necessary to make a man more than an idiot ; but, this being 

 granted, we think that in consequence of our uncertainty of what 

 mental elements constitute what is vaguely called a great mind ; in 

 consequence of our ignorance of many qualities of any given mind, 

 of the opportunities of any given individual, and the various influences 

 which must obscure our knowledge of his real character ; in conse- 

 quence of the apparently contradictory results of statistics of the 

 weight of brains, and of our ignorance of how much that depends on 

 the weight of the body ; in consequence, finally, of the unsatisfactory 

 results of the examination of the convolutions, — we must admit that 

 as yet we have no proof of any definite relation between the weight 

 and shape of the brain on the one hand and the mental capacity on 

 the other. 



