146 LECTURE VI. 



facial parts. As we have seen, the length of the cerebral space 

 extends in no anthropoid ape to one half of the whole length 

 of the head ; whilst in man^ even in the lowest races, the length 

 of the facial part constitutes only an unimportant fraction, 

 which in the Australian does not amount to a quarter of the whole 

 length. There are, no doubt, Negro heads in which the quarter 

 is reached, and even slightly exceeded, inasmuch as the genuine 

 Negro has a proportionately much longer and narrower skull 

 than the Austral Negro ; but the gap can only be filled up by 

 those unfortunate creatures born as idiots, and known by the 

 name of microcephali, — their defective formation of brain and 

 cranium not being produced, as in cretins, by disease after 

 birth, but by an original arrest of cerebral development. In 

 such creatures, sometimes the offspring of normal parents, and 

 of which the so-called Aztec children are instances, we find all 

 the intermediate proportions between the cerebral and the 

 facial skull that can be imagined. 



In mentioning idiots, I come into collision with a mighty 

 authority, not unlike the fragile clay pot with the iron kettle. 

 Addressing his Munich audience, Prof. Bischoff says : " Com- 

 pai'isons have been made with diseased and degenerate men as 

 they appear in the shape of microcephali, idiots, and cretins. 

 The error thus committed is palpable, since these unfortunates 

 are not men at all, but monstrosities ; the saddest thing about 

 them being that they possess human shape without being men." 

 We should like to ask where man ends and monstrosity begins? 

 Is a man with a cleft iris no man, but only a monstrosity ? Is 

 that citizen of Hamburg who, some years since, travelled about 

 to exhibit his cleft sternum, through which the heart could be 

 felt, a man, or only a monstrosity ? Is the unfortunate being 

 who is born without arms, and has to paint with his feet ; who 

 converses with you in your own language, and is a cheerful, 

 intelligent, and witty companion (we have known such cases, — 

 and the instance of Ducornet,who, though deficient in hands, be- 

 came a painter, is well known), is he no man because he has only 

 stumps ? And if all these individuals are men, which no person , 

 can doubt, why should individuals with malformed brains (as much 

 an organ of the body as the eye, sternum, or limb) not be men ? 



