PERFECTIBILITY OF MAX. 183 



anatomy call upon us to believe is, that the brain, in 

 its size and weight, in the proportion of its parts, and 

 in other specialties of structure, does we know not 

 how or why correspond with and in some sort de- 

 note the capacities of mind of which it is the instru- 

 ment. Many exceptions and anomalies there are, 

 and these wrapped in the same mystery as the normal 

 relations of elements so entirely incongruous to our 

 conceptions, yet so inseparable in our present existence. 

 In this failure of all interpretation we are forced to 

 acquiesce. 



We must, therefore, not too keenly speculate on 

 the manner and proportion in which the mind and the 

 material organ may respectively contribute to the de- 

 velopment of higher powers. The argument before us 

 rests upon the assumed facts, that there are notable 

 differences in the brain as regards volume and other 

 structural peculiarities that these differences have 

 some connexion, however inexplicable, with the kind 

 and degree of the mental endowments and that they 

 can be extended and perpetuated by inheritance, so as 

 to characterise not only individuals but whole races of 

 mankind. The different forms and capacity of the 

 skull in different races have been carefully examined, 

 and they accord well with the relations just denoted. 1 

 Human design has had little or nothing to do with 

 these results. But in their existence itself we have the 

 proof of an aptitude for change which, even apart from 



1 It is the view of Herbert Spencer (in contradistinction to the doctrine 

 of Kant, regarding innate perceptions or ideas), that the constitution of 

 our minds is wholly derived from experience not individual experience 

 solely, but the accumulated experience of our ancestors transmitted to us 

 hereditarily. 



