36 THE SKULL THEORY 



We are far from undervaluing the full significance 

 of the results of exact and careful descriptions and 

 measurements of various conformations of the skull as 

 an empirical basis for a true and scientific study of the 

 skull i.e., for comparative and genetic craniology. 

 But still we must say that the way and method Ly 

 which this skull measurement has, for ten years now, 

 been pursued by numerous craniologists can never yield 

 corresponding scientific results ; on the contrary, though 

 it is cried up as the " exact morphology " of the skull, it 

 simply loses itself in the domains of harmless trifling. 

 A large amount of time has in the last ten years been 

 squandered in disputes as to the best method of mea- 

 suring skulls, while the craniologists concerned have 

 not, in the first place, answered the obviously most 

 important question : What end they propose to gain 

 by this specialist measuring, what proposition they 

 mean to prove by it ? Most of those numerous skull 

 measurers know nothing beyond the perfect human 

 skull, or at most the skulls of a few other mammalia, 

 while the comparative morphology and historical 

 development of the crania of the lower vertebrata are 

 wholly unknown to them ; and yet these last con- 

 tain the true key to the comprehension of the others. 

 One single month devoted by these " exact skull 

 measurers " to the study of Gegenbaur's theory of the 

 skull, and to testing the hypothesis by the skulls of 



