kind, and their intellectual inferiority. The collections of Dr. J. B. Davis and Dr. Morton give the following as the average internal capacity of the cranium in the chief races :-Teutonic family, 94 cubic inches; Esquimaux, 91 cubic inches; Negroes, 85 cubic inches; Australians and Tasmanians, 82 cubic inches; Bushmen, 77 cubic inches. These last numbers, however, are deduced from comparatively few specimens, and may be below the average, just as a small number of Finns and Cossacks give 98 cubic inches, or considerably more than that of the German races. It is evident, therefore, that the absolute bulk of the brain is not necessarily much less in savage than in civilised man, for Esquimaux skulls are known with a capacity of 113 inches, or hardly less than the largest among Europeans. But what is still more extraordinary, the few remains yet known of pre-historic man do not indicate any material diminution in the size of the brain case. A Swiss skull of the stone age, found in the lake dwelling of Meilen, corresponded exactly to that of a Swiss youth of the present day. The celebrated Neanderthal skull had a larger circumference than the average, and its capacity, indicating actual mass of brain, is estimated to have been not less than 75 cubic inches, or nearly the average of existing Australian crania. The Engis skull, perhaps the oldest known, and which, according to Sir John Lubbock, "there seems no doubt was really contemporary with the mammoth and the cave bear," is yet, according to Professor Huxley, "a fair average skull,

which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage." Of the cave men of Les Eyzies, who were undoubtedly contemporary with the reindeer in the South of France, Professor Paul Broca says (in a paper read before the Congress of Pre-historic Archæology in 1868)"The great capacity of the brain, the development of the frontal region, the fine elliptical form of the anterior part of the profile of the skull, are incontestible characteristics of superiority, such as we are accustomed to meet with in civilised races; " yet the great breadth of the face, the enormous development of the ascending ramus of the lower jaw, the extent and roughness of the surfaces for the attachment of the muscles, especially of the masticators, and the extraordinary development of the ridge of the femur, indicate enormous muscular power, and the habits of a savage and brutal race.

These facts might almost make us doubt whether the size of the brain is in any direct way an index of mental power, had we not the most conclusive evidence that it is so, in the fact that, whenever an adult male European has a skull less than nineteen inches in circumference, or has less than sixty-five cubic inches of brain, he is invariably idiotic. When we join with this the equally undisputed fact, that great men-those who combine acute perception with great reflective power, strong passions, and general energy of character, such as Napoleon, Cuvier, and O'Connell, have always heads far above the average size, we must feel satisfied that

Ꮓ

volume of brain is one, and perhaps the most important, measure of intellect; and this being the case, we cannot fail to be struck with the apparent anomaly, that many of the lowest savages should have as much brains as average Europeans. The idea is suggested of a surplusage of power; of an instrument beyond the needs of its possessor.

Comparison of the Brains of Man and of Anthropoid Apes. In order to discover if there is any foundation for this notion, let us compare the brain of man with that of animals. The adult male Orang-utan is quite as bulky as a small sized man, while the Gorilla is considerably above the average size of man, as estimated by bulk and weight; yet the former has a brain of only 28 cubic inches, the latter, one of 30, or, in the largest specimen yet known, of 34 cubic inches. We have seen that the average cranial capacity of the lowest savages is probably not less than five-sixths of that of the highest civilized races, while the brain of the anthropoid apes scarcely amounts to one-third of that of man, in both cases taking the average; or the proportions may be more clearly represented by the following figures-anthropoid apes, 10; savages, 26; civilized man, 32. But do these figures at all approximately represent the relative intellect of the three groups? Is the savage really no further removed from the philosopher, and so much removed from the ape, as these figures would indicate? In considering this question, we must not forget that the heads of savages vary in size, almost as much as those of civilized

Europeans. Thus, while the largest Teutonic skull in Dr. Davis' collection is 112.4 cubic inches, there is an Araucanian of 115.5, an Esquimaux of 113·1, a Marquesan of 110-6, a Negro of 105.8, and even an Australian of 104.5 cubic inches. We may, therefore, fairly compare the savage with the highest European on the one side, and with the Orang, Chimpanzee, or Gorilla, on the other, and see whether there is any relative proportion between brain and intellect.

Range of intellectual power in Man.-First, let us consider what this wonderful instrument, the brain, is capable of in its higher developments. In Mr. Galton's interesting work on "Hereditary Genius," he remarks on the enormous difference between the intellectual power and grasp of the well-trained mathematician or man of science, and the average Englishman. The number of marks obtained by high wranglers, is often more than thirty times as great as that of the men at the bottom of the honour list, who are still of fair mathematical ability; and it is the opinion of skilled examiners, that even this does not represent the full difference of intellectual power. If, now, we descend to those savage tribes who only count to three or five, and who find it impossible to comprehend the addition of two and three without having the objects actually before them, we feel that the chasm between them. and the good mathematician is so vast, that a thousand to one will probably not fully express it. Yet we know that the mass of brain might be nearly the same in

both, or might not differ in a greater proportion than as 5 to 6; whence we may fairly infer that the savage possesses a brain capable, if cultivated and developed, of performing work of a kind and degree far beyond what he ever requires it to do.

Again, let us consider the power of the higher or even the average civilized man, of forming abstract ideas, and carrying on more or less complex trains of reasoning. Our languages are full of terms to express abstract conceptions. Our business and our pleasures involve the continual foresight of many contingencies. Our law, our government, and our science, continually require us to reason through a variety of complicated phenomena to the expected result. Even our games, such as chess, compel us to exercise all these faculties in a remarkable degree. Compare this with the savage languages, which contain no words for abstract conceptions; the utter want of foresight of the savage man beyond his simplest necessities; his inability to combine, or to compare, or to reason on any general subject that does not immediately appeal to his senses. So, in his moral and æsthetic faculties, the savage has none of those wide sympathies with all nature, those conceptions of the infinite, of the good, of the sublime and beautiful, which are so largely developed in civilized man. Any considerable development of these would, in fact, be useless or even hurtful to him, since they would to some extent interfere with the supremacy of those perceptive and animal faculties on which his very existence often depends, in the