THE .E71 ETHNOLOGICAL JOURNAL: A MONTHLY RECORD OF Ethnologial Research and Criticism. No. III. SEPTEMBER, 1865. LONDON: TRÜBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW; LEIPSIC: F. A. BROCKHAUS. Price One Shilling. I. THE PLACE OF MAN IN THE ANIMATE SCALE. No. 3 II. LANGUAGE AS A TEST OF THE RACES OF MAN. III. ON THE TERMS CAUCASIAN, ARYAN, AND TURANIAN, IN ETHNOLOGY IV. ON THE REPRESENTATIVE AFFINITIES OF THE EUROPEAN V. MEETING OF A DEPUTATION FROM THE COMITÉ VI. THE ANTRHOPOLOGICAL CONGRESS VII. CORRESPONDENCE :-ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE BRITISH VIII. THE ETHNOLOGICAL JOURNAL :—— -ETHNOLOGY AND AN THROPOLOGY PAGE 99 118 121 122 139 141 Two Vols., 8vo., price 32s. DESCRIPTIVE ETHNOLOGY. By R. G. LATHAM, M.A., M.D., F.R.S., late Fellow of King's Coll., Cambridge, &c. THE ETHNOLOGY OF INDIA. May be had separately, 8vo., 16s. THE ETHNOLOGY OF EUROPE. Fcap. 8vo., 5s. THE ETHNOLOGY OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. Fcap 8vo., 5s. THE ETHNOLOGY OF THE BRITISH COLONIES AND DEPEN DENCIES. Feap. 8vo., 58. MAN AND HIS MIGRATIONS. Fcap. 8vo, 5s. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE VARIETIES OF MAN. 8vo., Illustrated, 21s. JOHN VAN VOORST, 1, Paternoster Row. Price Twopence; in Monthly Parts, Tenpence. THE GEOLOGICAL & NATURAL HISTORY REPERTORY: An Ellustrated Popular Weekly Magazine of GEOLOGY, PALEONTOLOGY, MINERALOGY, AND ZOOLOGY, AND JOURNAL OF PREHISTORIC ARCHEOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY. LONDON: Published every Saturday by KENT & Co., and TRÜBNER & Co., Paternoster Row: and ED. STANFORD, Charing Cross. PHRENOLOGY. A truly skilful and candid analysis of the mental organization of the young may be of the highest importance in their education and destination. DR. DONOVAN has had long experience in this most valuable science, and may be consulted at the London School of Phrenology, 111, Strand, nearly opposite Exeter Hall. THE ETHNOLOGICAL JOURNAL. SEPTEMBER, 1865. THE PLACE OF MAN IN THE ANIMATE SCALE. (Continued from page 71.) § VI. FUNCTIONAL EVIDENCES OF THE GREAT STRUCTURAL SUPERI ORITY AND COMPLEXITY OF THE HUMAN AS COMPARED THE SIMIAL BRAIN. WITHI We have examined in the foregoing section the position assumed by Professor Huxley, that an immense gulf in function does not necessarily imply an equivalent gulf in structure, and shown that the illustration offered in proof of this assertion entirely fails in its object, and does not at all touch the point really at issue. It shows us how slight alterations in a mechanism may impair or destroy, but it does not at all show us how such changes can produce a vast improvement. This question of organic improvement is of supreme importance in the case under consideration; and I shall now bring some additional evidence to bear upon it. Functional improvement may consist either in an increase of power or facility of use in existing functions, or in the superaddition of new ones. An increase of power may be given in several ways: we may intensify the external force which acts on the organ, or diminish friction, or otherwise remove impediments; or we may enlarge the capacity of the organ, or so alter it as to allow the motive force to act more efficiently than before. Three of these means, however, may be at once excluded as bearing alike on the two organisms compared. The motive force in the case of an animate structure is external nature-air, water, food, heat, light, and other external influences. These are virtually the same for man and the ape, or, if there be any difference in favour of man, that difference is one of his own creation, and therefore presupposes his inherent superiority. Originally, man must have stood as naked and defenceless as the apc, as VOL. I. I regards external nature; and even as matters now stand he enjoys no real advantage, as far as this argument is concerned, unless it be true that the physical condition of the ape is unsuitable to its nature; a position, we presume, which no naturalist will venture to take, and certainly one which no naturalist would be able to establish. As to impediments to due action, they are, of the two, less likely to exist in the case of the unfettered ape than in that of man, subject to a thousand restraints created by his superior powers and duties. And as to mechanistic efficiency, we have no reason for inferring that Nature is less skilful in the case of one animal type than in that of another, but, on the contrary, every reason for believing that all her normal formations are perfect in their kind. These conditions, then, being excluded, if we wish to obtain an increase of power in one of two like organs or organisms, we can only do so by an equivalent increase in size, and this does not come within the category of great functional increase produced by slight organic changes. If the human brain differed from that of the ape in power only, and not in kind, in functional force, and not in functional diversity, then man could only have double the mental power of the ape by having a brain twice the size of a simial brain, and to have fifty times the mental power he must have a brain fifty times the size. Now it is quite elear that no such disproportions in volume of brain exist between these two animals; while it is equally clear that the disproportions in mental power are far greater than this, even in Professor Huxley's own view of the matter. It is plain, then, that we have to consider something more than functional and organic volume in the case of these two animals. There are, however, a set of cases which, hastily viewed, do seem to countenance the statement of Professor Huxley. But the illusion vanishes when we examine them carefully and in detail. Two guns may be made and yet, with the same to the same size and pattern to all appearance, charge of powder, one shall only carry half the distance of the other. But then a moment's consideration will make it evident that the one gun, as compared with the other, is in some respect badly made. It offers impediments of some sort to the action of the ball or to that of the charge. It brings us, therefore, into the category of impedimental causation; and the inferiority of its structure is practically equivalent to injury and abnormality, and implies want of skill or care on the part of the constructor; and if the difference in efficiency amounts to a gulf, the inferior piece must be a very bungling affair indeed. Nature, assuredly, shows no such bungling as this in her typical workings. Accident may mar her design in the case of the individual; we may talk of an abnormal plant or animal, but no one talks, or rationally can talk, of abnormal species, genera, classes, or kingdoms. The worker that could reach perfection in the case of man could not be a bungler in that of the ape. On the other hand, if we have two guns similar in size, perfect in make, and yet differing immensely in efficiency, it is clear that one of them must have an order of structure immensely superior to that of the other; for where the motive power is equal, the only other element of causation is structure. However, in the case of an experiment so simple as that here implied, it is plain that we could not by means of structural changes only, and irrespective of increased size and motive force, produce an immense gulf in function between any two pieces; and if we remember that complexity is but the repetition of simplicities, it will be evident that what is inherently impossible in a simple case is equally so in a complex one, since if it be impossible in every separate element of an aggregate, it is impossible in the whole. If, then, man differed from the ape in amount only of mental power, and not in kind of power also, it is plain that he could only do this by having a brain immensely larger than that of the ape; but this he plainly has not got. The difference in size between the two brains, though very important in certain aspects, is a mere nothing when compared with the aggregate functional disproportion; and it is plain, therefore, that the case before us is not one of mere volume of mental force, or one of mere size or efficiency in like cerebral structures, but one of new kinds of function, and consequently of new kinds of structure. The superaddition of a new kind of function necessitates the formation of a distinct organ for its production: if an animal is to see, it must have an optic apparatus; if to hear, an acoustic one; and if it is to have a new internal sense, whether intellectual or emotional, it must equally have a special organ for its production. The number of primitive powers possessed by an animal is, therefore, the number of its distinct organs; and if those powers be capable of distinct subdivision or modification, their organs must have a parallel subdivision. If a watch is not only to tell the time, but also to strike the hours, it must have a superadded contrivance to enable it to discharge this new function; and every additional function which we require of it necessitates the formation of an additional contrivance nor can one of these contrivances do the work of another; each is precisely fitted for its own work, and from that very fact is disqualified from doing any other kind of work. These are the necessities of mechanism of all mechanism, no matter what its kind or grade; whether vital or non-vital, animate or inanimate, spiritual or material, matters not in the least, for mechanism is but an organised and interacting sequence of causations, and the laws of causation are everywhere one and the same. When, therefore, we give to vital mechanism powers which would be :: |