BRAIN DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION 525 



BRAIN DEVELOPMENT AS RELATED TO EVOLUTION.* 



By Hon. G. HILTON SCKIBNER. 

 I. 



"\X0 subject in recent times has received so much attention, 

 -^^ or been so carefully investigated, as the question of the 

 origin and age of man. Even that large class of scholars who 

 long since came to regard the development of man from lower 

 forms as a closed question have persistently held that it would be 

 extremely desirable to ascertain the full extent to which visible 

 and indisputable evidences could be discovered and authenticated, 

 bearing upon this particular issue of the antiquity of man in the 

 developed form we now call a human being. And it is safe to 

 add that no investigations have ever been carried forward with 

 more circumspection on the one side, or under the fire of a more 

 searching and severe criticism on the other. For this question, 

 involving the origin, and age of man as such, constitutes the 

 very pith and animus of the captious contention still going on 

 as to the soundness of what is commonly called, in a broader 

 sense, the doctrine of evolution. 



If the theory of the gradual unfolding of all other organic life 

 could possibly have been accepted without disturbing the belief 

 in the recent and exceptional origin of man, it doubtless would 

 have long since received the approval of all intelligent minds. 



It is because man, the head and consummation of all animate 

 existence on the globe, is drawn into the restless current of all 

 common and lower life, although in the van yet as part and par- 

 cel, kith and kin of it, that the whole theory of evolution is at 

 first thought and to many minds fearful and shocking. There- 

 fore the arguments and the objections constantly hurled against 

 the broad conception of evolutionary descent involving man are 

 legion, and this theory could never have held its ground against 

 such an assault but for the one controlling fact that, fortunately 

 or unfortunately, it is true. It is so true that, like a principle in 

 morals, or the philosophy and spirit of Christianity, or a logical 

 sequence, or a theorem in mathematics, when once understood, it 

 compels belief. 



Its critics, therefore, from whose ranks nearly all converts to 

 the theory have been made, regarding the antiquity and origin of 

 man as its most objectionable feature, have very naturally and 

 from the first attempted to discredit all evidences of his prehis- 

 toric existence. 



* Read before the Fortnightly Club for the Study of Anthropology, of Yonkers, N. Y., 

 February 16, 1893, by G. Hilton Scribner, president. 



