LECTURE III. 85 



mences at an earlier period in the ape^ should not take place 

 in advanced age in man. 



Parchappe, who has made a number of cranial measurements 

 on his own system, asserts that the cranium increases up 

 to the fiftieth year, but considerably diminishes after the 

 sixtieth ; that the diminution takes place especially in the 

 frontal region, corresponding to the anterior cerebral lobes, and 

 that the frontal sinuses enlarge after the sixtieth year. Theile 

 has observed, that that sphere of life in which we especially 

 look for intelligence embraces two classes of intelligence ; the 

 one original ; the other, acquired by education, and which, 

 under lower social conditions, would not have risen above the 

 common level. A distinction must certainly be made between 

 creative minds, such as that of Gauss, which open new roads to 

 science, and such minds as that of Hausmann, which proceed in 

 the beaten path, and whose names, though occupying high posi- 

 tions during life, soon disappear from the history of science. 

 We must not forget that the solution of this question is, as 

 Welcker observes, to a certain extent invidious. Anthropo- 

 logists, with large heads, may feel inclined to adopt one view, 

 whilst those less favoured will accept the opposite theory. 



There is no doubt that, in every race and species of man 

 and animals, there obtains a definite law as regards the pro- 

 portion and weight of the brain to that of the body ; but this 

 can only be determined from numerous observations. At all 

 events, it is certainly erroneous to lay down absolute rules as 

 to the proportion between the weight of the brain and of the 

 body. The weight of the body varies, as is well known, 

 greatly according to the nutrition and nutritive decomposition 

 to which an animal is exposed. If the increase during fatten- 

 ing, or the diminution during starvation, affected all parts in a 

 similar degree, the proportion of the weight of the brain to 

 that of the body would remain the same. We know, however, 

 that such is not the case ; and the accurate investigations of 

 Chossat have shown that the brain is just the very organ which 

 proportionally loses least weight from starvation. The poorer 

 the alimentation of an animal, the greater is the proportional 

 weight of the brain, and the greater should be its intellectual 

 function if it depended on such a condition. Hunger, no 



