Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/816

 796 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The average for the age of thirty to forty in the white race, when the brain has reached maturity, is, according to Wagner, 1,4 1 Og. for men and 1,262 for women; according to Huschke, it is 1,424 and 1,272, or a difference of 150 g., while the differ- ence between Austrian and English males is 85 g. However, the cranial capacity and weight of the brain do not have an absolute value. The brain of the elephant may reach 3,000 g. ; that of the porpoise is the same. The quality is more impor- tant. The facial and cerebral angles, the cerebral material, and the nature of the convolutions are elements affording a more characteristic value ; they reflect the structure more exactly, the more or less complete equilibration of the external world, and the social environment. Besides, the individual variations of the weight of the brain depend, not only upon race, but also upon age, sex, stature, severe illness, and degree of intelli- gence. According to Perchappe and Topinard, the approximate percentage in the variations of the total weight of the brain is determined by each of these factors in the following propor- tions :

Sex - 10 per cent.

Age - 4

Stature - - 4

Mental disease - - 4-5

Idiocy - - 1 8 "

Severe illness - 10

Intelligence - - 20

As this is in close relation to social statics and dynamics, it shows that the exercise of the intellectual faculties together with the increasing division of labor and of functions, has broken up, more and more, the primitive equality of capacity and weight of the brain between the sexes. The average difference is only about 10 per cent. But among the African negroes this differ- ence is much decreased, the relation of male to female being 1,238: 1,232. Since intellectual development can produce a dif- ference of 20 per cent., the possibility of woman gradually over- coming the difference between her and man no longer seems an insurmountable difficulty, on the condition that the reduction of this difference may be in correlation with social evolution ; the latter is a condition sine qua non.