characterized 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 characterized either by deformity, or their smallness; 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 conforms to the indications of nature, artists make large heads to denote energetic 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 proportions 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, without 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 disproportionate to the body of Pericles. I have seen the same fault committed by our modern artists: they left the head of Napoleon of its natural size; but, in order to establish a proportion conformable to their ideas, they placed it on a colossal body. In general, artists are

still, almost every where, 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 example, 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 organization 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 imitate it in defiance of the laws of organization. With so small a head, every woman would of necessity be a simpleton; and the artists, certainly, 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, Haller, Leibnitz, Voltaire, Pascal, Montaigne, &c.

I observe, however, that a man who really merits the title of great, but only in a single relation, 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, without the whole brain participating in the great development of one or some few of its parts.

VOL. I.

16

5. It is only by the difference in the organization 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 in the other. The parts of 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 cerebellum 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 forehead to the occipital bone is greater, and all the other diameters smaller. Such are the physical differences. Now these differences explain perfectly, the superiority of the intellectual faculties in man, and the greater energy of the love of children in women, &c. The 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 I 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

* Recherches de la vérité 5th edition. Paris, 1700, t. 1. p. 155.

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 organization, has assigned to each sex its particular sphere of moral and intellectual 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 conformation of the brain is different, the propensities and talents differ, whatever resemblance may exist in the rest of the body.

Men of all nations possess all the same essential 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 organization are likewise mere modifications. 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 talents 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 Fauchè, had many traits of resemblance; they were united from their infancy by an extraordinary 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 skulls announced a different development of organs, there existed a difference, not less sensible 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 mediocrity; the sister, on the contrary, raises herself, in many respects, above her sex.

But, if a case occurs of twins, whose organization is different, it is in vain that diet, education, examples and circumstances are similar, there results no resemblance in character. In two twin girls, the head and the physical constitution differ totally. In the one, nature seems to have thought only of developing the bones and the muscles; in the other, she appears to have occupied herself solely with the nervous system. Thus, the first is possessed of very moderate intelligence, while the second is endowed with brilliant qualities.

7. When the physical constitution is transmitted from fathers to children, these participate in the same proportion, in their moral qualities and intellectual faculties.

From the time of Horace, men have never ceased to observe, that certain moral qualities are often propagated for ages in the same family; which proves the close connection between the organization and the exercise of the moral and intellectual forces. Hence it happens, not only that certain maladies, such as gout, phthisis,