144 CHARACTERS Ot" 



The brain being tlie organ by which the impressions on 

 the external senses are combined and compared, in which all 

 the processes called intellectual are carried on, we shall find 

 that animals partake in a greater degree, or at least approach 

 more nearly to reason, in proportion as the mass of medul- 

 lary substance forming their brain exceeds that which con- 

 stitutes the rest of the nervous system ; or, in other words, 

 in proportion as the organ of the mind exceeds those of the 

 senses. Since, then, the proportions of the cranium and 

 face indicate those of the brain and of the principal external 

 senses and instruments of mastication, we shall not be sur- 

 prised to find that they point out to us, in great measure, 

 the general character of animals, the degree of instinct and 

 docility which they possess : — hence the study of these pro- 

 portions is of high importance to the Naturalist. Man 

 combines by far the largest cranium, with the smallest face : 

 and animals deviate from these relations in proportion as 

 they increase in stupidity aud ferocity. 



One of the most simple (though often insufhcient) me- 

 thods of expressing the relative proportions of these parts- 

 is by the course of the facial line, and the amount of the 

 facial angle. Supposing a skull to be observed in profile, in 

 the position which it would have when the occipital condyles 

 are at rest, in the articular hollows of the atlas, in the erect 

 attitude of the body, and neither inclined forwards nor 

 backwards — a line drawn from the greatest projection of the 

 forehead to that of the upper maxillary bone, follows the 

 direction of the face, and is called the facial line ; the angle, 

 which this forms with a second line, continued horizontally 

 backwards, is the facial angle, and measures the relative 

 prominence of the jaws and forehead *. In man only is the 

 face placed perpendicularly under the front of the cranium ; 



* See Camfer Kleititre Schriften ; t. i. pt. i. page 15. Hist. Nat. de 

 fOrang-utang ; Ch. VII. pi. 1. fig. 3. Dissertation Physique sur les 

 Differences rcdlcs que prescntent les Traits clu Visage, 8^'c. 4to. Utrecht^ 

 1791. The course of the horizontal line, and its point of contact with the 

 facial line, are b^' no means uniform in all the figures represented by 

 Camper. 



