other elements of difference besides weight; for, as Tennyson insists,
“Woman is not undevelopt man, but diverse.” The results of Wagner’s
observations on the superficial measurements of the convolutions of the
brain point to the conclusion that in the female the lesser brain-weight
may be compensated by a larger superficies. Ranked in the order of their
relative weights in grammes, six average brains of men and women were
found to stand thus:—
1. Male (_a_) 1340
2. Male (_b_) 1330
3. Male (_c_) 1273
4. Female (_d_) 1254
5. Female (_e_) 1223
6. Female (_f_) 1185
But the same brains, when tested by the degrees of convolution of the
frontal lobe, measured in squares of sixteen square millimetres,
irrespective of the question of relative size, ranked as follows,
advancing the female (_d_) from the fourth to the first place, and
reducing the male (_c_) from the third to the sixth place:—
1. Female (_d_) 2498
2. Male (_a_) 2451
3. Male (_b_) 2309
4. Female (_f_) 2300
5. Female (_e_) 2272
6. Male (_c_) 2117
But, as already indicated, some modern disclosures tend to raise the
question whether the difference between the sexes, in so far as relative
volume of brain is concerned, has not been increased as a result of
civilisation. The disparity in size between the Cro-Magnon male and
female skeletons is quite as great as that of modern times, but the
capacity of the female skull is relatively good.
Other observations, such as those of Professor Rolleston “On the People
of the Long Barrow Period,” seem to indicate a nearer approximation in
actual cranial capacity of the two sexes in prehistoric times than among
modern civilised races. On the assumption that intellectual activity
tends to permanent development of brain, it is consistent with the
conditions of savage life that it should bring the mental energies of
both sexes into nearly equal play. They have equally to encounter the
struggle for existence, and have their faculties stimulated in a
corresponding degree. As nations rise above the purely savage condition
of the hunter stage, this relative co-operation of the sexes is
subjected to great variations. The laws of Solon with reference to the
right of sale of a daughter or sister, and the penalties for the
violation of a free woman, show the position of the weaker sex among the
Greeks at that early stage to have been a degrading one. But the change
was great at a later stage; and much of our higher civilisation is
traceable to the early establishment of the European woman’s rights,
which Christianity subsequently tended to enlarge. The position of woman
among the ancient Britons appears to have been one of perfect equality
with man. Among the Arabians and other Mohammedan nations, including the
modern Turks, the opposite is the case; and the whole tendency of the
creed of the Koran, and the social life among Mohammedan nations, must
be towards the intellectual atrophy of woman. Hence it is consistent
with the diverse conditions of life that, in so far as cerebral
development is the result of mental activity, a much closer
approximation is to be looked for in the mass and weight of brain in the
two sexes among savage races, than among nations where woman
systematically occupies a condition of servile degradation, or of
passive inertness.
* * * * *
Some interesting results of the actual brain-weights of Negroes and
other typical representatives of inferior savage races have been
published, including examples of both sexes; and although the
observations are as yet too few for the deduction of any absolute or
very comprehensive conclusions, they furnish a valuable contribution
towards this department of ethnical comparison. In 1865, Dr. Peacock
published the results of observations on the brains of four Negroes and
two Negresses; and to those he subsequently added a seventh
example.[164] Others are included in the following table. But I have
excluded some extremes of variation, such as the two given by Mascagni,
one of which weighed 1458 grammes, or 51.5 oz. av., and the other only
738 grammes, or 26.1 oz. av. In addition to such actual brain-weights,
Morton, Tiedemann, Davis, Wyman, and others, have gauged the skulls of
Negroes, American Indians, Mincopies, Tasmanians, Australians, and other
savage races, as well as those of many civilised and semi-civilised
nations, and thereby contributed valuable data towards determining their
relative cranial capacity. In his _Crania Ægyptiaca_, Dr. Morton, when
discussing the traces of a Negro element in the ancient Egyptian
population, says: “I have in my possession seventy-nine crania of
Negroes born in Africa, for which I am indebted to Drs. Goheen and
M’Dowell, lately attached to the medical department of the colony of
Liberia, in Western Africa; and especially to Don Jose Rodriguez
Cisneros, M.D., of Havana, in the island of Cuba. Of the whole number,
fifty-eight are adult, or sixteen years of age and upwards, and give
eighty-five cubic inches for the average size of the brain. The largest
head measures ninety-nine cubic inches; the smallest but sixty-five. The
latter, which is that of a middle-aged woman, is the smallest adult head
that has hitherto come under my notice.”[165]
TABLE I
NEGRO BRAIN-WEIGHT
─────┬────────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────┬────────
│ │ │
Sex. │ Race. │ Authority. │Weight.
│ │ │
─────┼────────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────┼────────
│ │ │
M. │African, Mozambique │Peacock │ 43.80
M. │ „ │ „ │ 45.80
M. │ „ Buenos Ayres │ „ │ 44.00
M. │ „ Congo │ „ │ 46.25
M. │ „ │ „ │ 42.80
M. │ „ │Sœmmering │ 45.40
M. │ „ │Tiedemann │ 35.20
M. │ „ Congo │C. Luigi Calori │ 44.40
M. │ „ │Barkow │ 50.80
M. │ „ │ „ │ 45.90
M. │ „ │ „ │ 38.90
M. │ „ │Sir A. Cooper │ 49.00
F. │Hottentot Venus │Marshall │ 31.00
F. │Bushwoman │ „ │ 30.75
F. │ „ │ „ │ 31.50
F. │ „ │ „ │ 31.00
F. │ „ │Flower and Murie │ 38.00
F. │African │Peacock │ 46.00
F. │ „ │ „ │ 41.00
│ │ │
─────┴────────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────┴────────
The influence of race on the volume, weight, disposition, and relative
proportions of the different subdivisions of the human brain, and so of
brain on the character of races, has thus far been very partially
tested. But the diversities of race head-forms—brachycephalic,
dolichocephalic, platycephalic, acrocephalic, etc.—are now
well-recognised, though their relation to cerebral development still
requires much research for its elucidation. The ancient Roman forehead,
as illustrated by classic busts, and confirmed by genuine Roman skulls,
was low but broad, and the whole head was platycephalic. The Greek had a
high forehead, and the works of the Greek sculptors show that this was
regarded as typical. But contemporary with the classic races were the
Macrocephali of the Euxine and the Caspian Seas, who, like many modern
tribes of the New World, purposely aimed at depressing a naturally
receding forehead, and thereby exaggerated the typical forehead
characteristic of certain ancient barbaric races.
In the case of hybrids the interchange of physical and mental
characteristics of the parents, including modifications of head-form, is
a familiar fact. The English head-form appears to be an insular product
of intermingled Briton, Teuton, and Scandinavian elements, which has no
continental analogue; and its subdivisions, or sub-types, vary with the
ethnical intermixture. The Scottish head appears to exceed the English
in length, while the latter is higher. Where the Celtic element most
predominates, the longer form of head is found; but even in the most
Teutonic districts the difference between the prevailing head-form and
that of the continental German is so marked that the latter finds it
difficult to obtain an English-made hat which will fit his head.[166]
Here the diversities of head-form are accompanied with no less marked
differences of individual and national character.
Professor Welcker determined the average capacity of the German male
skull as 1450 cubic centimetres, equivalent to 88 cubic inches, and
representing an average brain-weight of 49 oz. Dr. Davis, by a similar
process, assigns to the Germans, male and female, the larger mean
brain-weight of 50.28 oz.; but by combining the means of both sexes, as
derived from his own tables and those of Huschke and Wagner, we obtain a
mean weight of German brain of 1314 grms., or 46.37 oz. The results of
an extensive series of observations by Dr. Broca, on the male French
skull, yield a mean capacity of 1502 cubic centimetres, or 91 cubic
inches, representing an average brain-weight of 50.6 oz. Morton, taking
his average from five English skulls, gives the great internal capacity
of 96 cubic inches; while Davis arrives at a capacity of only 90.9 cubic
inches from the examination of thirty-two skulls, male and female; and
for the Scottish and Irish, each of 91.2 cubic inches, from an
examination of thirty-five skulls. But unfortunately the Davis
collection, so rich in other respects, derived its chief English
specimens from a phrenological collection; and, along with a few large
skulls, contains “many small and poor English examples.”[167] The
average weight of the English brain may therefore, as Dr. Davis admits,
be assumed to be higher than the mean determined by him. “Still a
comparison with actually tested weights of brains shows that there
cannot be any material error.” The average brain-weight of twenty-one
Englishmen, as given by him, is 50.28 oz., that of thirteen women is
43.13; and of the combined series, 47.50. The results determined by the
same process in relation to the other nationalities of Europe are
exhibited in detail in Dr. Davis’s tables, printed in the _Philosophical
Transactions_.
Such averages are, at best, only approximations to true results; and
when obtained, as in Morton’s English race, from a very few examples, or
in Davis’s, from exceptional skulls, collected under peculiar
circumstances or for a special purpose, they must be tested by other
observations. According to Dr. Morton, for example, the mean internal
capacity of the English head is 96 cubic inches, while that of the
Anglo-American is only 90 cubic inches. Such a conclusion, if
established as the result of comparison of a sufficiently large number
of well-authenticated skulls, would be of great importance in its
bearing on the influence of change of climate, diet, habits, etc., as
elements affecting varieties of the human race. But determined as it was
in the Morton collection, from five English and seven Anglo-American
specimens, it can be regarded as little more than a mere chance result.
Ranged nearly in the order of mean internal capacity of skull, the
following are the results arrived at, mainly by gauging the skulls in
various collections available for such comparisons of different races of
mankind. In presenting them here, I avail myself of Dr. Thurnam’s
researches, augmenting them with other data subsequently published,
including results deduced from Dr. Davis’s minute reports of his own
extensive collections, and taking Tiedemann’s capacity of 92.3 for the
European skull as 100.
TABLE II
RATIO OF CUBICAL CAPACITY OF SKULLS OF DIFFERENT RACES
────────────────────┬────────────────────┬──────────
│ │
Race. │ Authority. │Capacity.
│ │
────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────────
│ │
European │Tiedemann │ 100.0
Asiatic │Davis │ 94.3
African │ „ │ 93.0
American │Tiedemann │ 95.0
„ │Davis │ 94.7
„ │Morton │ 87.0
Oceanic │Davis │ 96.9
Chinese │ „ │ 99.8
Mongol │Morton │ 94.0
„ │Tiedemann │ 93.0
Hindoo │Davis │ 89.4
Malay │Tiedemann │ 89.0
American Indian │Morton │ 91.0
Esquimaux │Davis │ 98.8
Mexican │Morton │ 88.5
Peruvian │Wyman │ 81.2
„ │Morton │ 81.2
Negro │Tiedemann │ 91.0
„ │Peacock │ 88.0
Hottentot │Morton │ 86.0
Javan │Davis │ 94.8
Tasmanian │ „ │ 88.0
Australian │Morton │ 88.0
„ │Davis │ 87.9
│ │
────────────────────┴────────────────────┴──────────
The tables of Dr. Morton and Dr. Davis furnish materials for drawing
comparisons between diverse nations of the great European family; but
though they are of value as contributions to the required means for
ethnical comparison, they fall far short of determining the average
cranial capacity of the different nationalities. Whilst, for example,
the tabular data in the _Thesaurus Craniorum_ show a mean internal
capacity of 94 cubic inches for the combined Teutonic family, the Finns
yield the higher mean capacity of 96.3 cubic inches. Again, Dr. Thurnam
found that the results of the weighing of fifty-nine brains of patients
at the Friends’ Retreat near York, mostly persons of the middle class of
society, yielded weights considerably above those which he subsequently
obtained from testing those of pauper patients in Wilts and Somerset.
But this has to be estimated along with the undoubted ethnical
differences which separate the population of Yorkshire from that of
Somerset and Wiltshire. An interesting paper in the West-Riding Asylum
Reports gives the results of the determination of 716 brain-weights,
rather more than half being males. The average is 48.149 oz. for the
male, and 43.872 for the female brain; whereas the average weights of
267 male brains of a similar class of patients in the Wilts County
Asylum, as given by Dr. Thurnam, is 46.2 oz., and of 213 female brains,
41.0 oz. The results of the observations carried on by Dr. Boyd at St.
Marylebone yield, from 680 male English brains, a mean weight of 47.1
oz., and from 744 female brains a mean weight of 42.3 oz.; whereas Dr.
Peacock determined, from 183 cases in the Edinburgh Infirmary, the
weight of the male Scottish brain to average 49.7, and that of the
female brain to average 44.3 oz. Here the results are determined by so
numerous a series that they might be accepted as altogether reliable,
were it not that in the former case they are based to a large extent on
a purely pauper class; whereas the patients of the Royal Infirmary of
Edinburgh include respectable mechanics and others from many parts of
Scotland, among whom education is common. It is not to be doubted,
indeed, that a considerable difference in the form and size of the head,
and no doubt also in brain-weight, is to be looked for amongst English,
Scotch, Irish, German and French men and women, according to the county
or province of which they are natives, and the class of society to which
they belong.
The comparative ratio of the cubical capacity of the skull, or the
average brain-weight, in so far as either is indicative of ethnical
differences among members of the European family of nations, has thus to
be determined by numerous examples; or dealt with in detail in reference
to the different nationalities. Even in single provinces or counties,
social position, and probably education, must be taken into account; so
that a series of observations on hospital and pauper patients may be
expected to fall below the general average; and fallacious comparisons
between European peoples may be based on data, correct enough _per se_,
but unjust when placed alongside of a different class of results. The
great mass of evidence in reference to brain-weight has thus far been
mainly derived, in the case of the sane, from one rank of life. A
comparison of the results with those derived from the insane of various
classes of society shows less discrepancy than might have been
anticipated. But there are certain cases of hydrocephalous and other
abnormally enlarged brains which have to be rigorously excluded from any
estimate of the size or weight of the brain, either as a race-test or as
an index of comparative mental power.
Were it possible to select from among the great intellects of all ages
an adequate series of representative men, and ascertain their
brain-weights, or even the cubical capacity of their skulls, one
important step would be gained towards the determination of the relation
between size of brain and power of intellect. But we have little other
data than such hints as the busts of Æschylus, Pericles, Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle, and other leaders of thought may supply. Malcolm
Canmore—Malcolm of the great head, as his name implied,—stands forth
with marked individuality from out the shadowy roll of names which
figure in early Scottish history. Charlemagne, we should fancy, merited
a similar designation. But the portraits of his modern imperial
successor, Charles V., show no such loftiness of forehead. Judging from
the portraits and busts of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Cromwell,
Napoleon, and Scott, their brains must have considerably exceeded the
ordinary size. In the report of the _post-mortem_ examination of Scott,
the physicians state that “the brain was not large.” But this, no doubt,
means relatively to the internal capacity of the skull in its then
diseased condition. The intermastoid arch, as already noted, shows a
remarkably exceptional magnitude of 19 inches, whereas the average of
fifty-eight ancient and modern European skulls, as given in the
_Thesaurus Craniorum_, is only 14.60. The portraits of Wordsworth and
Byron show an ample forehead; and the popular recognition of the “fair
large front” of Milton’s typical man as the index of superior intellect
is an induction universally accepted. But, on the other hand, examples
of intellectual greatness undoubtedly occur with the brain little, if at
all, in excess of the average size. On the discovery of Dante’s remains
at Ravenna in 1865, the skull was pronounced to be ample, and exquisite
in form. But its actual cubical capacity and estimated brain-weight fall
considerably below those of the highest ascertained brain-weights of
distinguished men. Again, looking at the casts of the skulls of Robert
the Bruce and the poet Burns, the first impression is the comparatively
small size of head, and the moderate frontal development in each. Robert
Liston, the eminent surgeon, remarked of the former: “The division of
the cranium behind the meatus auditorius is large in proportion to that
situated before it. The skull is also remarkably wide and capacious in
that part, whereas the forehead is rather depressed”;[168] and more
recent observers have not hesitated to recognise in it a reversion to
the Canstadt type of the primitive European savage. Other
characteristics so markedly indicate the elements of physical rather
than intellectual vigour, that Liston expressly pointed out the analogy
to “the heads of carnivorous animals.” The Bruce was indeed
pre-eminently distinguished for courage and deeds of personal prowess;
but it was no less by statesmanlike qualities, calm, resolute
perseverance, and wise prudence, that he achieved the independence of
his country.
George Combe, the phrenologist, to whom the original cast of Burns’s
skull was first submitted, thus states the case in reference to the
frontal development of the poet: “An unskilful observer looking at the
forehead might suppose it to be moderate in size; but when the
dimensions of the anterior lobe, in both length and breadth, are
attended to, the intellectual organs will be recognised to have been
large. The anterior lobe projects so much that it gives an appearance of
narrowness to the forehead which is not real.”[169] The actual
dimensions of the skull are, longitudinal diameter, 8 inches; parietal
diameter, 5.95; and horizontal circumference, 22.25.
In the year 1865 the bones of Italy’s greatest poet, Dante, were
submitted to a minute examination under the direction of commissioners
appointed by the Italian Government to verify the discovery; and careful
measurements were taken of the skull. Dr. H. C. Barlow, describing it
from personal observation, says: “The head was finely formed, and the
cranium showed, by its ample and exquisite form, that it had held the
brain of no ordinary man. It was the most intellectually developed head
that I ever remember to have seen. The occipital region was prominently
marked, but the frontal was also amply and broadly expanded, and the
anterior part of the frontal bone had a vertical direction in relation
to the bones of the face” (_Athenæum_, September 9, 1865). But however
intellectually developed and exquisite in form the poet’s skull may have
appeared, the actual measurements fall short of the amplitude here
assigned to it. The dimensions are as follows: Internal capacity,
determined by filling the calvarium with grains of rice, 3.1321 lbs.
av., or a little over 50 oz.; circumference, 52 cent. 5 mill.;
occipito-frontal diameter, 31 cent. 7 mill.; transverse diameter, taken
between the ears, 31 cent. 8 mill.; height, 14 cent. If the internal
capacity is accepted without any correction, it would yield 57 oz., but
if allowance be made, as in the actual weighing of the brain, for the
abstraction of the dura mater and fluids, of say 8 per cent, this would
reduce it to about 52.5, or nearly the same weight as that of the
mathematician, Gauss. Professor Welcker deducts from 11.6 to 14 per
cent, according to the size of the skull; Dr. J. B. Davis recommends a
uniform deduction of 10 per cent. If we apply the latter rule, it will
reduce the estimated weight of Dante’s brain to 51.3 oz.[170]
Another interesting example of the skull of an Italian poet is that of
Ugo Foscolo, a cast of which was taken on the transfer of his remains to
the Church of Santa Croce at Florence. Though only fifty years old at
the time of his death, the skull was marked by “the entire ossification
of the coronal, sagittal, and lambdoidal sutures, and that atrophy of
the outer table, manifested by a depression on each side in the
posterior half of each parietal, leaving an elevated ridge in the
middle, in the position of the sagittal, which is but rarely observed
except in extremely advanced age.”[171] Sir Henry Holland, who knew the
poet intimately, describes him as resembling in temperament the painter
Fuseli, “passionately eccentric in social life.” Full of genius and
original thought, as the writings of Foscolo show him to have been, he
“was fiery and impulsive, almost to the verge of madness.”[172] He died
in England in obscurity and neglect; but a regenerated Italy recalled
the memory of her lost poet, and transferred his remains to Santa
Croce’s consecrated soil. The estimated size of his brain is given as
1426 cubic cents., equivalent to 87 cubic inches internal capacity,
which corresponds to a weight of brain of 48.44 oz. The longitudinal
diameter is 6.90; the parietal diameter 5.70; the intermastoid arch
15.0; and the horizontal circumference 520 mm., or 20.5 inches. The
brain capacity of the poet was thus little more than the European mean
deduced by Morton from the miscellaneous examples in his collection.