KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



169 



M. Bonn, professor at Amsterdam, possesses two 

 little skulls of idiots, and the brain of a simpleton 

 who lived to the age of twenty-five years. He 

 was so stupid, that, though born at Amsterdam, 

 they made him pass, for an African savage, and 

 exhibited him for money. M. Pinel has a similar 

 cranium of a young girl of eleven years, perfectly 

 idiotic. Among the anatomical preparations of 

 the school of medicine at Paris, is also found the 

 undeveloped cranium of an idiot child. I have 

 had two similar skulls drawn, taken from my 

 collection ; both are remarkable for their small- 

 ness. One is the skull of a child of seven years ; 

 the other of a girl of twenty. These two indi- 

 viduals were perfectly imbecile. I have observed 

 heads equally small, in several congenital idiots, 

 still living. All these skulls and heads are from 

 thirteen to fourteen inches in circumference, and 

 eleven to twelve from the root of the nose to the 

 great occipital foramen. If dwarfs, who enjoy 

 their intellectual faculties to a certain degree, 

 appear to form an occasional exception to this law, 

 the^ size of the head has not been duly noticed ; 

 which, in these cases, is always very dispropor- 

 tionate to the rest of the body. Even when the 

 head is a little larger than those which charac- 

 terise complete imbecility, the intellectual faculties 

 are still almost entirely benumbed. 



In the different degrees, which characterise im- 

 becility, the faculties manifest themselves in the 

 same proportion as the brain becomes more per- 

 fect in its organisation. Individuals, who are 

 in this degree of development, exhibit some pecu- 

 liar dispositions and propensities ; their gestures 

 become more significant ; they go so far as to 

 produce short phrases sufficiently well followed 

 out. The functions thus elevate themselves 

 together with the organisation, until the feeble- 

 ness of the mind betrays itself in a small number 

 of points, or even in a single point. 



We see, by this, that all individuals who are 

 reputed simple, are not completely so. Parents 

 and physicians sometimes have trouble in com- 

 prehending how a child, who acquits himself well 

 in all there is to do in the house, and who exhi- 

 bits exact sensations, sensibility, and even 

 cunning, can be ranged in the class of simpletons. 

 Such is, notwithstanding, the state of many 

 children, who hear, but do not learn to speak. 

 I have directed my attention to this point, while 

 occupying myself with the functions of the sense 

 of hearing ; and when I treat |of the articulate 

 language peculiar to man, I shall show that this 

 accident has for its cause an organic malady of 

 the brain, and a consequent want of power to ex- 

 ercise all its functions. 



At Hamburgh, we saw a young man of six- 

 teen, in whom the anterior-inferior parts of the 

 head were well developed ; but his forehead was 

 hardly an inch in height, because the anterior- 

 superior parts had been checked in their deve- 

 lopment ; and he enjoyed, in consequence, only 

 the exercise of the functions belonging to the 

 anterior-inferior portion. He learned names, 

 dates, numbers, history, and repeated it all 

 mechanically. But combination, the comparison 

 of ideas and judgment, were entirely wanting. 

 They regarded him with reason, as simple ; and 

 could_ employ him in nothing. I shall have 

 occasion in the course of this work, to cite- several 



examples which confirm the proposition, that the 

 defective development of the brain, or of particular 

 organs, has always for its result the feebleness of 

 their action. 



4. When the organs of the Mind and Soul Jiave 

 acquired a high degree of development and 

 perfection, there results to these organs a 

 power of manifesting their functions with 

 great energy. 



I shall prove the truth of this result, when I 

 treat of the influence of the development of 

 organs on the exercise of the corresponding 

 faculties. I shall show, at the same time, that 

 when individuals distinguish themselves pecu- 

 liarly, and in a remarkable manner, by a deter- 

 minate quality — or when they fall into a fixed 

 idea, propensity, partial mania, or monomania, by 

 too great exaltation, it is almost always the ex- 

 traordinary development of some particular organ 

 which occasions it. Without now entering into 

 these details, I shall content myself with fixing 

 the attention of my readers on the manifest 

 difference which every one may remark between 

 three sorts of heads, to wit : the heads of idiots, 

 the heads of men whose talents are only mode- 

 rate, and those of illustrious men, of vast and 

 eminent genius. The first are characterised by 

 their smallness, as we have just seen, and the 

 last by their great size. The heads of idiots, 

 unless the brain be otherwise diseased, are 

 characterised either by deformity, or their small- 

 ness ; the heads of men of eminent qualities, 

 by their magnitude. 



This difference is conspicuously evident in the 

 productions of the fine arts. We see that in 

 their works, which conform to the indications of 

 nature, artists make large heads to denote ener- 

 getic intellectual qualities, and especially large 

 foreheads ; and they give small and depressed 

 foreheads, and a head very strong in the posterior 

 parts, to individuals who distinguish themselves 

 only by qualities of an inferior order. The 

 ancients gave to the statues of their priests and 

 their philosophers much larger foreheads than to 

 those of their gladiators. Remark, especially, 

 the distinction they have adopted in their Jupiter 

 of the capitol ; the form of no head has ever been 

 so strongly prominent in the anterior and superior 

 part of the forehead. What a difference between 

 this and the head of Bacchus ! 



In all the peculiar cases, in which men of 

 talent and genius have not been of large stature, 

 their heads are observed to be disproportionate 

 to the body ; and we no longer find the propor- 

 tions usually adopted for beauty, and which are 

 fixed by the form of Apollo. So long as artists 

 wish only to represent fine forms, they may, with- 

 out doubt, continue to take Apollo for a model ; 

 but if they wish to express a great character, or 

 great talents, they must sacrifice the point of 

 general proportions. 



It is in this way that we must explain the 

 errors which several artists have committed. 

 Even in the golden age of Grecian art, they 

 represented Pericles covered with a helmet, to 

 conceal the size of his head. The Athenian poets 

 laughed at this head, because they found it dis- 

 proportionate to the body of Pericles. I have seen 

 the same fault committed by our modern artists ; 



