es,
and the individuals who find their way there are poorly developed on
account of malnutrition and of life under unfavourable circumstances,
while the eminent men represent a much better nourished class. As poor
nourishment reduces the weight and size of the whole body, it will also
reduce the size and weight of the brain.[7] Dr. Arthur Keith when
dealing with the so-called Piltdown skull in his book "The Antiquity of
Man" says to the same effect that the size of brain is a very imperfect
index of mental ability in that we know that certain elements enter into
the formation of the brain which take no direct part in our mental
activity, so that a person who has been blessed with a great robust body
and strong, massive limbs requires a greater outfit of mere tracts and
nerve cells for the purposes of mere animal administration than the
smaller person with trunk and limbs of a moderate size.[8]

It seems fair, therefore, to assume that the brain-weights of big men of
the Zulu, the Xosa and the Fingo tribes will be considerably above those
of European women, but to conclude from this that the capacity of the
big black man is higher than that of the average white woman would
hardly be possible to-day. I would say here that I do not accept the
suggestion, recently advanced, that the mental faculty of woman is
qualitatively different from that of man. I hold that there is no
difference of any kind between the intellectual powers of the male and
female human being. The comparative lack of mental achievement on the
part of women in the past I believe to have been due to a natural, and,
as I think, wholesome feminine disinclination to take up intellectual
studies and scientific pursuits that until recently have been deemed the
prerogative of men, and not to any innate inferiority of the female
brain.

According to Professor Sollas, whose high authority cannot be disputed,
the size of the brain when looked at broadly seems to be connected with
the taxinomic rank of the race, but when we come to details the
connection between cranial capacity and mental endowment becomes less
obvious. The Eskimo, for instance, who is of short stature, has a
cranial capacity of 1,550 cubic centimetres, thus surpassing some of the
most civilised peoples of Europe, and yet no one of this race has so far
startled the world with any kind of mental achievement. "The result,"
says Professor Sollas, "of numerous investigations carried out during
the la