114 SUTHBERT COLLINGWOOD, ESQ., M.A., B.M. (OXON.), ETC. 
trated near to its inmost recesses. The probability is that 
he has not reached their confines. 
The object of these remarks and suggestions is to point 
out the fallacy that mere size and weight of brain alone can 
be taken as an index of mental power; whereas it is probable 
that it is the subtle workings of its yet almost unknown 
fluids or spirits which determme its activities and energies. 
“Tdiocy,” it is remarked, “is compatible with large and 
apparently well-developed brains,” but this apparently can 
only indicate the broad features and characteristics of brain- 
development, and can take no cognisance of those of which 
we have been speaking. To be the medium of the intellect 
(to leave soul out of the question), the brain must be an 
organ of wondrous delicacy and complexity; and it is con- 
ceivable that a very slight, and (by any physiological 
appliance) utterly inappreciable defect or want of balance 
would be amply sufficient to interfere with the due exercise 
of the reasoning functions, and would leave the otherwise 
rational Man an idiot. And such idiocy would yet be 
perfectly compatible with the belief that it arises from no 
absence of faculty, but that, could the defect or flaw in the 
instrument, or the impediment to the flow of the nervous 
fluids, be remedied, the faculties would energise ; just, in 
fact, as a small warp or crevice in a flute would put a stop 
to its capacities for melody, although the same means were 
used which could otherwise render it musical. 
In like manner we may conceive that the shght apparent 
structural differences between the brain of a Gorilla and that 
of a Man may be of but little importance, if a higher 
quality of nervous spirit be admitted as the probable operat- 
ing cause of the higher manifestations of faculty in Man. 
Size, and weight, and even microscopic structure are but 
gross criteria for so excellent an organ as the brain—the 
sustainer of life, the instrument of thought, the energiser of 
the intellect, and the bond between the soul and the body. 
And lastly, to return to that which led to these remarks, 
such delicate shades of organisation and such functional 
activities of the spirituous fluids (influences which very 
possibly interact) are in all probability the causes of those 
superior, and, in a sense, abnormal, manifestations of intel- 
lectual power in some special direction which we call Genius 
—rmanifestations which give us some slight insight into what 
would be the capabilities of the same faculties were they not 
hampered by a material organisation, but, instead thereof, 
lodged in an approximate spiritual organism. Justly guided 
