its over-ruling power, and everything in the upper half
operates in proportion to its elevation with that controlling
influence against evil, which uplifts him toward angelic or divine
superiority.

The brain may be divided by a horizontal line from the center of the
forehead into its coronal and basilar halves, and by a vertical line
from the cavity of the ear, into its frontal and occipital halves.

The vertical line separates the more passive and the more active
faculties. The posterior half of the brain is the source of the
backward forces by which the body is advanced, as the anterior half is
the source of the forward movements by which our progress is checked.
The posterior half would make blind, unceasing, irrepressible
action--the anterior half would produce a state of relaxed and feeble
tranquillity and sensibility--the condition of a helpless victim. The
concurrence of the two is indispensable to human life, and the
necessity of their more or less symmetrical balance is so great that
nature balances the head upon the condyles of the occipital bone, at
the summit of the neck, which are so located as to correspond very
nearly with the opening of the ear.

The contour of the head is very nearly that of a semicircle, with its
center an inch or more above the cavity of the ear. Thus wisely has
nature arranged in well-balanced individuals the symmetrical
proportion between the active and passive elements of life. In the
head of the writer there is a preponderance of the passive over the
active elements, which gives him the attraction to a studious, rather
than active or ambitious life.[1] In nations or races of ambitious
character, the head is long, or _Dolico-cephalic_, and the occipital
measurement is larger than the frontal, but in those of peaceful,
unambitious character, like the ancient Peruvian and the Choctaws of
the United States, the occipital measurement is less than the frontal.

[1] The head of Dr. Gall shows the same frontal preponderance,
which led him to the pursuits of intellect instead of
ambition, but also shows an immense force of character
derived from its extreme breadth and basilar depth. The head
of Spurzheim, whose skull I have often examined, shows even
a greater preponderance of the front, and a predominance of
the coronal over the basilar region, producing his marked
amiability, with sufficient basilar breadth to give him