Morton's Crania Americana, 349 



slow to acknowledge the details of cranioseopy as tangbt by Dr. 

 Gall, and supported and extended by subsequent observers. We 

 have not, however, neglected this branch of enquiry, but have 

 endeavored to examine it in connection with numerous facts, 

 which can only be fully appreciated when they come to be com- 

 pared with similar measurements derived from the other races of 

 men." We shall state, in a subsequent part of this article, the 

 conclusions at which Dr. Morton has arrived, in consequence of 

 his observations and measurements; meantime it is important to 

 state the principles on which he proceeded. 



In a iew years, it will appear a singular fact in the history of 

 mind, that in the nineteenth century, men holding the eminent 

 station in literature occupied by Lord Jeffrey and Lord Brougham, 

 should have seriously denied* that the mind, in this world, acts 

 by means of material organs ; yet such is the case ; and the de- 

 nial can be accounted for only by that entire neglect of physiology, 

 as a branch of general education, which prevailed in the last cen- 

 tury, and by the fact that the metaphysical philosophy in which 

 they were instructed, bore no reference to the functions of the 

 brain. We need not say, that no adequately instructed natural- 

 ist doubts that the brain is the organ of the mind. But there are 

 two questions, on which great difference of opinion continues to 

 prevail : 1st. Whether the size of the brain (health, age, and 

 constitution being equal) has any, and if so, what influence, on 

 the power of mental manifestation ? and 2dly. Whether differ- 

 ent faculties be, or be not, manifested by particular portions of the 

 brain. 



The first proposition, that the size of the brain, other condi- 

 tions being equal, is in direct relation to the power of mental 

 manifestation, is supported by analogy, by several well known 

 facts, and by high physiological authorities. The power of smell, 

 for example, is great in proportion to the expansion of the olfac- 

 tory nerve on the internal nostrils, and the volume of the nerve 

 itself bears a direct relation to the degree of that expansion. The 

 superficial surface of the mucous membrane of the ethmoidal 

 bone, on which the nerve of smell is ramified, is computed in 

 man to extend to 20 square inches, and in the seal, which has 



* Lord Jeffrey, in the Edin. Review, No. 88, and Lord Brougham in his Dis- 

 course on Natural Theology, p. ISiO. 



