The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-11-29
BRAINS OF GREAT
Bxo BRAINS NOT NECESSARY TO
 GREATWRss.
GaMb@xxa's Was So Small i4 Weighed Hardly Mere Than of an Idiot --Emterestfn@ View of
 Old amneksan.

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 There ia something very mournful in the labors of those Societies who have devoted their lives to the study of the brain of men. women and races on the assumption that there is direct ratio between intelligence and the bulk of brain, writes Prof. W. I. Thomas in the American Magazine. It would be about as valid to assume that vesset of water and a vessel of I've Of the same weight have the same potency, or that timepieces of the same weight are necessarily equally good time- Keepers.
 Great men may have great brains, or they may not. Turgenieff holds the re- cord at 2,012 grams, while the brain of Gambetta, who was q greater man in popular estimation and popular achievement weighed only 1,l6o. or only Iso grams above the point at which, according to the calculations or French anthropofogists, idiocy begins. In a series of 800 brains the lowest and highest will. In fact, differ as much as $50 grams in weight, but there will be found no constant relation be- tween the weight and the intelligence.
 Various Brains in Various Bodies. :.
 The brain Is so largely concerned with moving the body that large bodies require large brains, but their posses sors are not on that account more intel ligent Tall men have usually large brains, but the old church worthy. Thomas Fuller, remarked that tne cock Loft of very tall men is usually empty" A human grade of intelii- gence Is. of course, necessary to hu- man work. and this is not usually pres ent if the brain falls below 1000 grams in weight. Particularly endowed brains also unquestionably do unusual forms of work. as In the case or mu- sicians and mathematical prodtgfes, but this particular endowment Is not necessarily associated either with great brain weight or with great all- around intelligence Musicians are among the most unintelligent of the professional classes, and mathematical prodigies (that is, lightning calcula- tors") are in other respects usually near the clas of idiots--their whole output Is mathematics.
 The eminence of Gambetta was more an eminence of the emotions than of the intelligence; that is, it emanated rather from. the abdominal zone than from the brain. It is also true that immortal fame, or at least substantial accomplishment and a place in the biographical dictionaries, is rather more frequently associated with per- sistent and dogged assertion of the will than with extraordinary mental
 
 That low man seeks a little thing to do,
 Sees 1t and does it. This high man with great thing to
 pursue
 Dies ere he knows it.
 It is significant, indeed, that men of small stature, weak health. and even physical affiiction. have, if anything, more than an ordinary chance of be. coming famouss Their attention Is lim- ited and they are stimulated to win out in spite of their handicap. Pas- teur is Q clear case of a truly great man. He was paralyzed on one side from 1888 until his death in 1895. but as Bertholiet says. 1t was after he was stricken that his inventive genius perhaps shone most brightly. Her bert Spencer, Darwin and von Hart~ mann hardly had 6 well day in their working lives. Pope was so feeble that he could hardly draw on his own stockings. Napoleon was of small