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KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



they left the head of Napoleon of its natural 

 size ; but, in order to establish a proportion con- 

 formable to their ideas, they placed it on a 

 colossal body. In general, artists are still, almost 

 everywhere, imbued with the prejudices of 

 antiquity, or with prejudices which some of them 

 have introduced, in relation to what they call 

 beauty. Let them be directed to cut in marble 

 the bust of a great man of the age, and let 

 them meet with unusual prominences — for ex- 

 ample, the organ of poetry unusually prominent 

 in the head of Voltaire, they will not fail to 

 plane away, to soften down these inequalities, 

 and even to claim great merit for having thus 

 corrected the faults of nature. These great 

 artists do not know, that one day the organi- 

 sation will explain to posterity the glory or the 

 shame of these great men ; and that it will be 

 by the fidelity of the forms which they will 

 transmit to our grand-children, that men will 

 rectify the partiality and the falsehoods of 

 historians. 



Let me be pardoned a little digression on the 

 head of the Venus de Medicis. Artists agree 

 that this small head has been substituted for 

 the true one, which is lost ; and yet they all imi- 

 tate it in defiance of the laws of organisation ! 

 With so small a head, every woman would of 

 necessity be a simpleton; and the artists, cer- 

 tainly, will not maintain, that imbecility and 

 beauty can be in harmony. 



Those who would satisfy themselves that the 

 favorable development of the organs is always in 

 relation with the more energetic exercise of their 

 functions, have only to examine the heads of men 

 who have distinguished themselves by eminent 

 talents. Let them observe the heads of Socrates, 

 Bacon, Sully, Golbert, Galileo, Boerhave, Hal- 

 ler, Leibnitz, Voltaire, Pascal, Montaigne, &c. 



I observe, however, that a man who really 

 merits the title of great, but only in a signal re- 

 lation, will not always have a vast, extended, 

 voluminous head, because he is not endowed 

 with great and extended faculties. The greatest 

 mechanician or architect, the greatest musician, 

 the first painter, &c, may excel in his art, with- 

 out the whole brain participating in the great 

 development of one or some few of its parts. 



5. It is only by the difference in the organisation 

 of the two sexes, that we are enabled to explain, 

 how certain faculties are more energetic in the 

 Man, and others in the Woman. 



From the different gradations of fibres in the 

 brain of the man and of the woman, Malebranche 

 attempted to account" for the difference in their 

 manner of thinking and feeling. The two 

 sexes, both in man and animals, have the same 

 brain, and consequently the same organs. But 

 commonly, some of these organs are more perfect 

 in one sex, and some of the other. The parts of I 

 the brain situated towards the anterior-superior \ 

 part of the forehead, are smaller in most women ; : 

 thus their foreheads are in general smaller and 

 shorter. They have, on the contrary, the parts | 

 situated in the superior region of the occipital 

 bone, much more strongly developed. Their cere- 

 bellum is commonly smaller than that of men. 

 We may, consequently, assume as a principle, 

 that, in the heads of women who conform to the 



ordinary structure, the diameter from the fore- 

 head to the occipital bone is greater, and all the 

 other diameters smaller. Such are the physical 

 differences. Now these differences explain per- 

 fectly the superiority of the intellectual faculties 

 in man, and the greater energy of the love of 

 children in women, &c. Ihe two sexes offer, 

 without doubt, a great number of exceptions 

 which are the cause that, frequently, the talents 

 proper to women are met in man, and vice versa. 

 But all that 1 should say here on this point, could 

 not be well understood, until I shall treat more 

 particularly of each organ of the functions which 

 have relation to it. Then only will men be 

 convinced, that if certain organs are smaller in 

 one sex, their functions are also more feeble ; and 

 that if other organs are larger, their functions are 

 executed with more energy. It will then be 

 seen, that it is not education, but nature, which, 

 by means of a varied organisation, has assigned 

 to each sex its particular sphere of moral and in- 

 tellectual activity. 



6. When the conformation of the Brain of several 

 individuals is similar, the propensities and the 

 talents are similar, however different the form 

 of the rest of the body ; and when the confor- 

 mation of the Brain is different, the propen- 

 sities and talents differ, ivJiatever resemblance 

 may exist in the rest of the body. 



Men of all nations possess all the same essen- 

 tial parts of the brain. Hence, there always has 

 been, and always will be observed, in all nations, 

 the same propensities, talents, moral qualities, 

 and intellectual faculties. The differences are 

 only modifications, as the differences in the 

 cerebral organisation are likewise mere modifica- 

 tions. If certain parts of the brain are generally 

 very much or very little developed in a nation, 

 they will determine the national character, or the 

 taleuts of which a nation is more particularly 

 possessed or deprived. 



It has always been remarked, that the brothers 

 and the sisters who most resemble each other, 

 or who, in the form of their heads, have most 

 resemblance to one of their parents, also resemble 

 each other as to the qualities of the mind and the 

 soul. I know two twins, whom it is difficult to 

 distinguish from each other, and who offer a 

 striking resemblance in their propensities and in 

 their talents. Two other twins, the brothers 

 Fauche, had many traits of resemblance ; they 

 were united from their infancy by an extraor- 

 dinary attachment. I have compared with care 

 the different parts of their heads. In comparing 

 my remarks with their autobiography, which 

 they severally brought me in writing, it was 

 found that my observations were, in all respects, 

 conformable to their own statements of their 

 characters. Wherever the development of their 

 cerebral organs was nearly equal, the respective 

 functions of these organs were the same ; in those 

 points in which the different structure of their 

 6kulls announced a different development of 

 organs, there existed a difference, not less sensi- 

 ble in their faculties. Of two other twins, of 

 different sex, the boy resembles his mother, a 

 woman of limited capacity ; the daughter takes 

 after her father, a man of uncommon talents. 

 The son displays in all things the most humble 



