Ransom Dexter

“ The subject of the facial angle has occupied the attention of philosophers from the earliest antiquity. Their theories, though vague, unsatisfactory, and uninteresting in themselves, yet tend conclusively to show that some patent general principle underlies the whole domain of the subject. Confined, as they were, to the narrow limits of the varieties of the human race, they would get only a part of the evidence that is so beautifully illustrated, when we include the whole sub-kingdom of animals to which we belong. ”

“ In the cold-blooded fish, the serpent, and the crocodile, the cavity for the brain is small, but little more than a prolongation of the canal for the spinal cord, with a disproportionate development of the organs of mastication, thus enabling them to execute the strongest instinct of the lower animals, namely, to slay and devour. In the bird class, the brain is somewhat larger, but is contained in the posterior part of the cranium, they manifesting but a slight mental superiority over the reptile. In the dog, over whom man is lord, and the noble horse, the brain is much larger ”

“ The above is a correct statement of the relative weight of the brain to the body of the lowest of the type, the fish, and the highest, man; showing the ratio of the weight of the brain in man, to that of the body, to be over 31 times greater than the same ratio in the fish. But, if we estimate the proportionate weight of merely the cerebral hemispheres, or the instruments of thought, to that of the body in the fish and man, we obtain a difference of 124, which expresses the number of times the cerebral hemispheres of man are greater than those of the fish ”