excite some surprise among my readers, to find that I do not consider that all nature can be explained on the principles of which I am so ardent an advocate; and that I am now myself going to state objections, and to place limits, to the power of "natural selection." I believe, however, that there are such limits; and that just as surely as we can trace the action of natural laws in the development of organic forms, and can clearly conceive that fuller knowledge would enable us to follow step by step the whole process of that development, so surely can we trace the action of some unknown higher law, beyond and independent of all those laws of which we have any knowledge. We can trace this action more or less distinctly in many phenomena, the two most important of which are-the origin of sensation or consciousness, and the development of man from the lower animals. I shall first consider the latter difficulty as more immediately connected with the subjects discussed in this volume.

What Natural Selection can Not do.

In considering the question of the development of man by known natural laws, we must ever bear in mind the first principle of "natural selection," no less than of the general theory of evolution, that all changes of form or structure, all increase in the size of an organ or in its complexity, all greater specialization or physiological division of labour, can only be brought about, in as much as it is for the good of the being so modified. Mr. Darwin himself has taken care to

impress upon us, that "natural selection" has no power to produce absolute perfection but only relative perfection, no power to advance any being much beyond his fellow beings, but only just so much beyond them as to enable it to survive them in the struggle for existence. Still less has it any power to produce modifications which are in any degree injurious to its possessor, and Mr. Darwin frequently uses the strong expression, that a single case of this kind would be fatal to his theory. If, therefore, we find in man any characters, which all the evidence we can obtain goes to show would have been actually injurious to him on their first appearance, they could not possibly have been produced by natural selection. Neither could any specially developed organ have been so produced if it had been merely useless to him, or if its use were not proportionate to its degree of development. Such cases as these would prove, that some other law, or some other power, than "natural selection" had been at work. But if, further, we could see that these very modifications, though hurtful or useless at the time when they first appeared, became in the highest degree useful at a much later period, and are now essential to the full moral and intellectual development of human nature, we should then infer the action of mind, foreseeing the future and preparing for it, just as surely as we do, when we see the breeder set himself to work with the determination to produce a definite improvement in some cultivated plant or domestic animal. I would further remark that this enquiry is

as thoroughly scientific and legitimate as that into the origin of species itself. It is an attempt to solve the inverse problem, to deduce the existence of a new power of a definite character, in order to account for facts which according to the theory of natural selection ought not to happen. Such problems are well known to science, and the search after their solution has often led to the most brilliant results. In the case of man, there are facts of the nature above alluded to, and in calling attention to them, and in inferring a cause for them, I believe that I am as strictly within the bounds of scientific investigation as I have been in any other portion of my work.

The Brain of the Savage shown to be Larger than he Needs it to be.

Size of Brain an important Element of Mental Power.-The brain is universally admitted to be the organ of the mind; and it is almost as universally admitted, that size of brain is one of the most important of the elements which determine mental power or capacity. There seems to be no doubt that brains differ considerably in quality, as indicated by greater or less complexity of the convolutions, quantity of grey matter, and perhaps unknown peculiarities of organization; but this difference of quality seems merely to increase or diminish the influence of quantity, not to neutralize it. Thus, all the most eminent modern writers see an intimate connection between the diminished size of the brain in the lower races of man

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. 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,

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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

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