ii 4 THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



HUMAN INTELLIGENCE 



How far the intelligence of modern man has developed 

 beyond the stages of the prehistoric man, whose skeletons have 

 in recent years come to light, it is practically impossible to 

 state. Certain of these earliest remains indicate a cranial 

 formation somewhat smaller than that of contemporary man 

 and, although the evidence is precarious, there is perhaps some 

 ground for thinking that the cerebral portion of the nervous 

 system was less highly developed than now and that presum- 

 ably the level of native intelligence was therefore lower. 

 Nevertheless, this would be merely an hypothesis. If we turn 

 to contemporary man, we find extreme variation in the culture 

 and civilization of different races, and a widespread belief in 

 equally marked differences in native intelligence. Thus the 

 Occidental white man unhesitatingly puts himself at the head 

 of the list, with the Asiatic ranking next, American Indians 

 perhaps next, the African next, and at the bottom possibly the 

 Bushmen of Australia. This list, of course, omits a number of 

 important groups, but may serve to give some indication of a 

 common type of arrangement. It is perhaps needless to say 

 that the Asiatic in making out his list would accord a different 

 position to his own group. Nor is any great racial stock dis- 

 posed to accept an inferior status. 



The question which is immediately raised by the most super- 

 ficial inspection of these racial differences of culture and civili- 

 zation has to do with the problem whether the European white 

 man, for example, has by virtue of superior native endowment 

 passed by evolutionary processes through stages of culture and 

 civilization comparable with some or all of those now reflected 

 in the several racial groups mentioned, or whether he has had 

 an altogether different history. Have the civilized races, in 

 general, evolved through superior intrinsic talent out of the 

 conditions represented by savage races? The problem is 



