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excessive smalhiess of the head, to the whole stature, or to the want of 

 proportion among the different parts of the skull. Thus in the idiot, 

 whose head is given in the work on mania (pi. 2. fig. 6.) it is only 

 the tenth of the whole height, whilst it should be something more than a 

 seventh, if we take the Apollo of Belvidere as the type of the ideal per- 

 fection of the human figure. An idiot, whom I occasionly see, has the 

 occipital extremity of the head so much contracted, that the large extre- 

 mity of the oval formed by the upper face, instead of being placed at the 

 back, as in other men, is, on the contrary, turned forwards and answers 

 to the forehead, which itself slopes towards the sinciput. The vertical 

 diameter of the skull is inconsiderable. The head, thus shortened from 

 above downwards, is much flattened on the sides. The hands and feet 

 are very small, and often cold $ the genitals, on the contrary are ex- 

 tremely large*. 



In two other children, equally idiots, and now in the Hospital of St. 

 Louis, the skull, very large behind, ends in a very contracted extremity, 

 and the forehead is very short, and not more than two inches and a half 

 wide, measuring from the semi-circular process, which terminates, at the 

 upper part of the temporal fossa, to the commencement of the same pro- 

 cess on the other side. The excessive growth of the genitals is not less 

 conspicuous ; they are, in these two children, one ten, the other twelve 

 years old, as well as in the first of whom I spoke, who is fourteen, of 

 larger size than is commonly seen after the appearance of puberty. 

 There is nothing to indicate that this season is attained by these three 

 idiots. 



The same excess of growth is found, more conspicuously among the 

 cretins of the Valais, idiots who (in conseqnence of a weak and degraded 

 organization) are prone to lascivousness and the most frequent onanism. 



This sort of opposition in the relative energy of the intellectual organ, 

 and of the system of reproduction, in the developement of the brain, and 

 that of the parts of generation is a phenomenon which must strongly in- 

 terest the curiosity and engage the attention of physiologists. Who is 

 there unacquainted with that enervation of the understanding, that in- 

 tellectual and physical debility, which indulgence in the pleasures of love 

 brings on, if we exceed ever so little the bounds of scrupulous modera- 

 tion? Castration modifies the moral character of men and animals, at 

 least as powerfully as their physical organization, as M. Cabanis has 

 shown, in treating of the influence of the sexes on the origin and growth 

 of the moral and intellectual powers. 



CLVIII. Our physical, therefore, holds our moral nature under a 

 strict and necessary dependence : our vices and our virtues, sometimes 

 produced and often modified by social education, are frequently, too, re- 

 sults of organization. To the conclusive proofs which the philosopher I 

 have just named, who is an honour to his profession, brings forward of the 

 influence of the physical on the moral human being, I will only add a single 

 observation. It is not certainly, the first that has been made of the kind; 

 but none such, I believe, has yet been published. The reader recollects, 

 I have no doubt, the old woman of whom I have spoken in treating of the 



* As a general rule, the intellectual faculties are in an inverse ratio to the magnitude 

 of the genital organs. This is particularly exemplified in the ancient statuary, and 

 supported by comparative anatomy. Gadman. 



