84 LECTURE III. 



a capital liead^" which did not apply to the performances of 

 the person, but merely to the external shape ; and I have con- 

 vinced myself, by actual inquiry, that the common people draw 

 their inferences as to the intellectual capacity from the size 

 and shape of the skull, and especially of the forehead. In 

 fact, actual measurements have shown that many highly gifted 

 individuals, among whom I may mention Cuvier, Schiller, and 

 Napoleon I, possessed, in proportion to their height, very large 

 skulls, and consequently highly developed brains. 



Wagner, of Gottingen, has published a rather large table of 

 cerebral weights, among which may be found those of many 

 highly gifted persons ; and he has based on this table the 

 assertion, that there is no good ground for the above theory, 

 inasmuch as the brains of Hausmann and Tiedemann, who 

 occupied an eminent position in science, were under the aver- 

 age weight. Exceptions, however, only prove the rule; and 

 besides, both the abovenamed philosophers died at a great age 

 from exhaustion of the vital powers, in consequence of which 

 all organs, and certainly the brain also, became atrophied. 

 Observations have not, however, been sufficiently numerous to 

 justify the positive assertion of the diminution of the brain in 

 old age, though the possibility of such a thing in man, as well 

 as in apes, is undeniable. I have before me two skulls of the 

 same species of baboon ; one belonged to a male which perished 

 at the period of dentition ; the other, to another male which had 

 reached maturity. The internal capacity of the young skull 

 is not only relatively, but absolutely larger than that of the old 

 animal,* so that unless it depended upon individual variation, 

 the old skull must have suffered a reduction. Such a reduction 

 can, of course, only be positively established by a great number 

 of measurements, for which I have not the means. The same 

 relation seems, however, to obtain among other apes. Thus, 

 Welcker gives delineations of three orang skulls, f which, on 

 close examination, show that the youngest skull has apparently 

 the largest internal cranial capacity. But if such be the case, 

 thei-e is no reason why the diminution of the skull, which com- 



* Similar instances amongst apes are very frequent. — Editor. 

 t Compare Brooke, Owen, and Wallace. — Editoe. 



