On the Functions of the Brain and of Each of Its Parts (Volume 4); With Observations on the Possibility of Determining the Instincts, Propensities, and Talents, or the Moral and Intellectual Dispositions of Men and Animals, by the Configuration of the Brai (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1835 Excerpt: ... our reasonings we should get, more than ever, lost in the abstractions and generalities of the metaphysicians, --an impassible barrier to all further research, the eternal tomb of all positive and special knowledge. V. Carnivorous Instinct; Disposition to Murder. History of the Discovery of this Instinct, and of its Organ. By carefully comparing the skulls of animals, I found a characteristic difference between those of the frugivorous and those of the carnivorous species. Placing the skulls of the frugivora in a horizontal position on a table, and raising a perpendicular from the external opening of the ear, I found that there remained behind this perpendicular, only a small portion of the posterior lobes and the cerebellum: consequently, the external opening of the ear, and the petrous portion of the temporal bone, mark the limits of the cerebrum, in these species. Testing the skulls of the carnivorous species in the same manner, I saw that, in the most of them, the perpendicular strikes the middle of the whole encephalic mass, or, at least, leaves behind it a very large portion of the cerebral mass. Ordinarily, in the carnivora, the greatest prominence of the brain is exactly over the external opening of the ear. I saw therefore that, in the carnivora, there are cerebral parts above and behind the ear, not possessed by the frugivora, and the same difference I found in birds as well as the mammifera. In all the birds of prey, this part of the brain swells out, while in all other species of birds, it seems to retreat, and the whole brain is situated in front of the external opening of the ear. For a long while I contented myself with communicating this observation to my hearers, without making the slightest practical application of it to organology. I showe..