124 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



between the volume of brain and the intelligence of its 

 possessor. Whales and elephants have much larger brains 

 than men, but they nevertheless stand far below him in 

 intelligence. 



It must be remembered, also, that the brain is not only 

 an organ of mental function. It is likewise the center of 

 the entire nervous system, and its volume, therefore, must 

 correspond with the size and number of nerve trunks under 

 its control. In man, as in animals, the brain elements are 

 to a great extent but sensori-motor delegates whose func- 

 tion is the regulation and government of every part of the 

 body. The superior size of the whale 's brain, as compared 

 with that of man, can readily be understood when we 

 reflect on the much greater amount of territory which these 

 sensori-motor delegates represent. When this fact is borne 

 in mind it will be found that the whale's brain, relatively 

 to that of man, is extremely small. For while the ratio 

 of man's brain weight to that of his body is as 1 to 36, 

 the ratio of the whale's brain weight to its immense body 

 is but 1 to 3,000. 



As an evidence that quality often counts for more than 

 quantity, brain anatomists would do well to reflect on the 

 marvelous intelligence displayed by ants and termites, 

 those mites of animated nature which so excited the admira- 

 tion of the naturalist Pliny and caused Darwin to declare, 

 "The brain of an ant is one of the most marvelous atoms 

 of matter in the world, perhaps more so than the brain of 

 man. ' ' 1 



Moreover, when discussing the relative brain weights of 

 the two sexes, we must not lose sight of the fact that we 

 have, with the solitary exception of the eminent Russian 

 mathematician, Sonya Kovalevsky, 2 no record of the brain 



1 The Descent of Man, Vol. I, p. 145, London, 1871. 



2 The brain of Sonya KovaleVsky was not weighed until it had 

 been four years in alcohol. Prof. Gustaf Eetzius then wrote an 

 elaborate account of it and estimated that its weight, at the time 



