TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 203 



crepancy than might have been anticipated. But there are certain 

 cases of hydrocephalous and other abnormally enlarged brains which 

 have to be rigorously excluded from any estimate of the size or 

 ■weight of the brain, either as a race-test or as an index of compara- 

 tive mental power. 



Were it possible to select from among the great intellects of 'all 

 ages an adequate series of representative men, and ascertain their 

 brain-weights, or even the cubical capacity of their skulls, one import- 

 ant step would be gained towards the determination of the relation 

 between size of brain and power of intellect. But we have little other 

 data than such hints as the busts of ^schylus, Pericles, Socrates, 

 Plato, Aristotle, and other leaders of thought may supply. Malcolm 

 Canmore — Malcolm of the great head, as his name implied, — stands 

 forth with marked individuality from out the shadowy roll of names 

 which figure in early Scottish history. Charlemagne, we should 

 fancy, merited a similar designation. But the portraits of his 

 modern imperial successor, Charles Y., show no such loftiness of 

 forehead. Judging from the portraits and busts of Chaucer, Shake- 

 speare, Milton, Cromwell, Napoleon, and Scott, their braii^s must 

 have considerably exceeded the ordinary size. In the report of the 

 post mortem examination of Scott, the physicians state that "the 

 brain was not large." But this, no doubt, mean3 relatively to the 

 internal capacity of the skull in its then diseased condition. The 

 intermastoid arch, as already noted, shows a remarkably exceptional 

 magnitude of 19 inches, whereas the average of fifty-eight 

 ancient and modern European skulls, as given in the " Thesaurus 

 Craniorum," is only 14-60. The portraits of Wordsworth and Byron 

 show an ample forehead ; and the popular recognition of the " fair 

 large front " of Milton's typical man as the index of superior intellect 

 is an induction universally accepted. But, on the other hand, examples 

 of intellectual greatness undoubtedly occur with the brain little, if 

 at all, in excess of the avei-age size. On the discovery of Dante's 

 remains at Ravenna in 1865, the skull was pronounced to be ample, 

 and exquisite in form. But its actual cubical capacity and esti- 

 mated brain-weight fall considerably below those of the heaviest 

 ascertained brain-weights of distinguished men. Again, looking at 

 the casts of the skulls of Bobert the Bruce and the poet Burns, the 

 first impression is the comparatively small size of head, and the 

 moderate frontal development in each. Mr. Robert Liston, the 



