CHAP. XX.] OF THE HUMAN BRAIN. 37o 



large size of an organ such as the Brain gives, perhaps, a 

 more than average warrant that its inner development will 

 be adequately carried out, and that the organ will be highly 

 endowed with its own proper kind of vitality. If how- 

 ever it does not fall short in either of these respects, an 

 increased size of Brain ought to be a distinct advantage for 

 its owner ; and, should the general and special conditions 

 of life be at all propitious, would be likely to favour the 

 development of great Mental Power or the acquisition of 

 much Learning. 



The tendency to the occurrence of high Brain -weights in 

 much larger proportion among the civilized than among 

 uncivilized or little civilized races has been already referred 

 to in this chapter. This, together with the other most note- 

 worthy and well-established fact, that such differences of 

 brain-weight are found to be far more marked among the 

 Men than among the Women when higher and lower races 

 are compared, affords most valuable evidence to show the 

 extent to which the Human Brain has, in the course of 

 many generations, gone on increasing in size under the 

 influence of that augmented use and exercise apt to be 

 entailed by a life passed in a state of Civilization. 



But the longer a state of Civilization has existed among 

 any particular people, the more generally diffused among 

 the individuals of such a people should be the tendency 

 to inherit a brain of full dimensions. And, except it be due 

 to some quasi-accidental and little understood race distinc- 

 tions, how else are we adequately to explain the remarkable 

 series of Chinese brain-weights published by Dr. C. Clap- 

 ham ? In these sixteen chance individuals of the Coolie 

 class the brain- weights are distinctly above the average for 

 English, French, or Germans, of the same social grade, 

 and, though to a less extent, also above that for Scottish 

 Lowlanders. 



