430 CORPOREAL CHARACTERISTICS OP MAN. 



also gave way, in its turn, to that of Soemmerring, — that man 

 possesses the largest brain in comparison with the nerves arising 

 from it. This has not yet been contradicted, although the com- 

 parative size of the brain to the nerves originating from it 

 (granting that they originate from it) is not an accurate measure 

 of the faculties, because the seal has in proportion to its nerves 

 a larger brain than the house dog, and the porpoise than the 

 orang-outang. 



As the human brain is of such great comparative magnitude, 

 the cranium is necessarily very large and bears a greater pro- 

 portion to the face than in any other animal. In an European 

 a vertical section of the cranium is almost four times larger than 

 that of the face (not including the lower jaw) j in the monkey 

 it is little more than double ; in most fene, nearly equal ; in the 

 glires, solipedes, pecora, and belluae, less. The faculties, how- 

 ever, do not depend upon this proportion, because men of great 

 genius, as Leo, Montaigne, Leibnitz, Haller, and Mirabeau, had 

 very large faces, and the sloth and seal have faces larger than 

 the stag, horse, and ox, in proportion to the brain, and the pro- 

 portion is acknowledged by Cuvier to be not at all applicable to 

 birds. We are assisted in discovering the proportion between 

 the cranium and face by the facial angle of Camper. He draws 

 two straight lines, the one, horizontal, passing through the 

 external meatus auditorius and the bottom of the nostrils, the 

 other, more perpendicular, running from the convexity of the 

 forehead to the most prominent part of the upper jaw. The 

 angle which the latter, — the proper facial line, makes with the 

 former, is greatest in the human subject, from the comparative 

 smallness of the brain and the great devekopement of the mouth 

 and nose in brutes. In the human adult this angle is about 

 from 65° to 85° ; in the orang-outang about from 55° to 65° > 

 in some quadrupeds 20° ; and in the lower classes of vertebral 

 animals it entirely disappears. 



Neither is it to be regarded as an exact measure of the under- 

 standing, for persons of great intellect may have a prominent 



