278 



skull is protruded by their cells. Thus, in the dog, in the elephant, 

 in the owl, Sec. the apparent size of the skull exceeds much its real 

 capacity*. 



The relative size of the head, and consequently the proportionate bulk 

 of the brain, is inconsiderable in very tall and muscular subjects : this fact 

 will be confirmed by observing 1 the proportions of antique statues. In all 

 those which represent heroes or athlets gifted with a prodigious bodily- 

 power, the head is very small, in proportion to the rest of the body. In 

 the statues of Hercules, the head scarcely equals in size the top of the 

 shoulder. The statues alone of the King of the Gods, present the singu- 

 lar combination of an enormous head, resting on limbs of a proportionate 

 size, but the Greek artists have transgressed the laws of Nature, only in 

 favour of the God that rules over her, as if a vast brain had been neces- 

 sary to one whose intellect carries him, at a glance, over the universe. 

 The relative small dimensions of the head, in athlets, depend on this cir- 

 cumstance, that in such men, the excessive developement of the organs 

 of motion, gives to the body, and especially to the limbs, an enormous 

 size, while the head covered by few muscles, remains very small. Scem- 

 mering has stated, that the head in women is larger than in men, and 

 that their brain is heavier; but it must be recollected, that this great 

 anatomist obtained this result, by examining two bodies, male and fe- 

 male, of the same length. Now, the absolute size being the same, the 

 proportionate magnitude was not so, and he was wrong in comparing the 

 head, the skull, and brain of a very tall woman, to that of a very short 

 man. 



It has long been thought, that there exists a connexion between the 

 bulk of the cerebral mass and the energy of the intellectual faculties. It 

 has been thought, that, in general, men whose minds are most capacious, 

 whose genius is most capable of bold conceptions, have a large head sup- 

 ported on a short neck. The exceptions to this general rule have been 

 so numerous, that many have doubted its truth; should it then be abso- 

 lutely rejected, and will it be allowed to be wholly without foundation, 

 when we consider that man, the only rational being out of so great a 

 number, and some of which bear to him a considerable resemblance both 

 of organization and structure, is, likewise the only animal in which the 

 brain, properly so called, is largest in proportion to the cerebellum, to the 

 spinal marrow, to the nerves, and to the other parts of the body ? Why- 

 may it not be with the brain, as with the other organs, which fulfil their 

 functions the better, from being more completely developed ? It should 

 be recollected, in this comparison of the brain and of the intellectual pow- 

 ers, that several causes may give to this viscus an unnatural degree of 

 enlargement. Thus, in subjects of aleucophlegmatic temperament, the 

 tardy ossification of the bones of the skull, causes the brain, gorged with 

 aqueous fluids, to acquire a considerable size, without its containing a 

 greater quantity of real medullary substance. Hence it is observed, that 

 men of this temperament are, most frequently, unfit for mental exertion, 

 and rarely succeed in undertakings that require activity and perse- 

 verancef. 



* Se APPENDIX, Note D D. 



f See, in the article on Temperaments, an account of the influence of the physical 

 organization on the moral disposition and on the intellectual faculties. 



