The investigation of Dr. Gould as to circumference of head and facial angle are exhibited in the following table:
| White. | Mulatto. | Black. | ||||
| Circumference of head | 22.1 inches. | 22.0 inches. | 21.9 inches. | |||
| Facial angle | 72.0° | 69.2° | 68.8° |
A difference of one-tenth of an inch in head circumference and of four-tenths of a degree in facial angle affords a very slender physical basis on which to predicate intellectual superiority.
The author lays great stress upon the following table made out by Dr. Hunt.
Weight of the Brain of White and Colored Soldiers.[42]
| No. of cases. | Degree of color. | Weight of brain. | |||
| 24 | White | 1424 | grammes. | ||
| 25 | Three parts white | 1390 | “ | ||
| 47 | Half white | 1334 | “ | ||
| 51 | One-fourth white | 1319 | “ | ||
| 95 | One-eighth white | 1308 | “ | ||
| 22 | One-sixteenth white | 1280 | “ | ||
| 141 | Pure Negro | 1341 | “ | ||
Twenty-four cases are taken to represent fifty million people, and the law of averages thus obtained is confidently relied upon. Nor are we informed as to what methods were employed to ascertain the exact composition of blood of the 22 cases that are rated as one-sixteenth white. But, supposing we accept this table, overlooking for the time being the fact that the brain weight of one white person is taken as typical of two million others, and also conceding the undisclosed method of Dr. Hunt in detecting homeopathic dashes of white blood, does it “clearly prove that there is an increase in the brain weight with an increase in the proportion of white blood?” If this table shows anything it is that the pure Negro and the Mulatto have about the same brain weight and that they are both superior in this respect to all degrees of mixture between them, but inferior to those of more than one-half white blood.
But it is rather unusual at this late day to base intellectual capacity upon the shape and size of skull. Investigations have shown that facial angle and capacity of cranium and cephalic index afford no certain criterion of thought power or susceptibility to culture. The latest word on this subject is given by Prof. Ripley, in a series of articles on “Racial Geography of Europe,” in Appleton’s Popular Science Monthly for 1897.
“An important point to be noted in this connection is that this shape of the head seems to bear no direct relation to intellectual power or intelligence. Posterior development of the cranium does not imply a corresponding backwardness in culture.... Europe offers the best refutation of the statement that the proportions of the head mean anything intellectual.... In our study of the proportions of the head, therefore, we are measuring merely race, and not intelligence in any sense.... Equally unimportant to the anthropologist is the absolute size of the head. It is grievous to contemplate the waste of energy when, during our civil war, over one million of soldiers had their heads measured in respect to this absolute size, in view of the fact that today anthropologists deny any considerable significance attaching to this characteristic. Popularly a large head with beetling eyebrows suffices to establish a man’s intellectual credit, but like all other credit it is entirely dependent upon what lies on deposit elsewhere.”[43]
A still more renowned authority tells us: “The development of the intellectual faculties of man is to a great extent independent of the capacity of the cranium and the volume of the brain.”[44]