208 MATERIALISM. 



moral. He may and does err in looking to the out- 

 side of the cranium as the sure interpreter of the 

 mental faculties and feelings lying underneath. But 

 the fact remains untouched that there are wonderful 

 innate diversities in all that constitutes the mental 

 being of man diversities in the kind and degree of 

 intellect diversities in the perfection of the senses, in 

 memory, in the elements of taste, imagination, and 

 genius diversities not less strongly marked in those 

 propensities and passions which define our moral 

 nature. These differences are found in the highest 

 mental qualities as well as in the lowest and basest. 

 They are strikingly shown in the faculties which seem 

 to involve a certain mechanism of action, as memory, 

 the mathematical or numerical faculty, and those con- 

 nected with the fine arts, music, painting, &c. As in 

 the case of bodily resemblances, these mental idiosyn- 

 crasies are often traceable to hereditary causes ; but 

 where not obviously so, still they are innate. 



The question, however, remains unanswered : Are 

 these differences due to different cerebral organisation? 

 Or is this organisation but the instrument to express 

 and put into action the diversities in a part of our 

 being to which no material epithet or description can 

 apply ? 



And this brings another physiological fact into the 

 argument, viz., the greater development of the brain 

 in man than in any other animal, and the proportion 

 found generally to exist between the size, weight, and 

 complexity of this organ and the perfection of intelli- 

 gence and other mental endowments. That such re- 



