by Elsie Lincoln Benedict
Available in 98 free installments
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¶ Thomas A. Edison, as level-headed and unmystical a scientist as lives, says, "Every cell in us thinks." Human Analysis proves to us that something very near this is the case for it shows how the habitual mental processes of every individual are always "off the same piece of goods" as his body.
Thus the fat man's mind acts as his body acts?evenly, unhurriedly, easefully and comfortably. The florid man's mind has the same quickness and resourcefulness that distinguish all his bodily processes. The muscular man's mind acts in the same strenuous way that his body acts, while the bony man's brain always has an immovable quality closely akin to the boniness of his body.
He is not necessarily a "bonehead," but this phrase, like "fathead," is no accident.
¶ As pointed out before, the larger any organ or system the more will it tend to express itself. So, the large-headed, small-bodied man runs more to mental than to physical activities, and is invariably more mature in his thinking. (See Chart 9) Conversely, the Alimentive type gets its traits from that elemental stage in human development when we did little but get and assimilate food, and when thinking was of the simplest form. In those days man was more physical than mental; he had a large stomach but a small head.
So today we see in the pure Alimentive type people who resemble their Alimentive ancestors. They have the same proportionately large stomach and proportionately small head,?with the stomach-system dominating their thoughts, actions and lives.
The Cerebral is the exact opposite of this. He has a top-heavy head, proportionately large for his body, and a proportionately undeveloped stomach system.
¶ The extreme Cerebral differs from other types chiefly in the fact that while his head is unusually large compared to the body, his alimentive, thoracic, muscular and bony systems are smaller and less developed than the average. The latter fact is due to the same law which causes the Alimentive to have a large body and a small head. Nature is a wonderful efficiency engineer. She provides only as much space as is required for the functioning of any particular organ, giving extra space only to those departments that need it.
The Cerebral-Alimentive is the combination which makes most of the "magnates" and the self-made millionaires. Such a man has all the Alimentive's desires for the luxurious comforts and "good things of life," combined with sufficient brains to enable him to make the money necessary to get them.
Nature doesn't give the pure Alimentive a large skull because he doesn't need it for the housing of his proportionately small brain, but concentrates on giving him a big stomach fitted with "all modern conveniences." On the other hand, the head of the Cerebral is large because his brain is large. The skull which is pliable and unfinished at birth grows to conform to the size and shape of the brain as the glove takes on the shape of the hand inside it.
¶ Because the Alimentive and Cerebral systems are farthest removed from each other, evolutionally, a large brain and a large stomach are a very unusual combination. Such an individual would be a combination of the Alimentive and Cerebral types and would have the Alimentive's fat body with a large highbrow head of the Cerebral. The possession of these two highly developed but opposite kinds of systems places their owner constantly in the predicament of deciding between the big meal he wants and the small one he knows he should have for good brain work.
We are so constructed that brain and stomach?each of which demands an extra supply of blood when performing its work?can not function with maximum efficiency simultaneously.
¶ When your stomach is busy digesting a big meal your brain takes a vacation. This little fact is responsible for millions of light luncheons daily. The strenuous manual worker can empty a full dinner pail and profit by it but the brain worker long ago discovered that a heavy midday meal gave him a heavy brain for hours afterwards.
