BRAIN DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION. 527 



convenient expedient, resorted to by that large class of persons 

 who have made no exhaustive examination of the subject ; but, 

 baseless as it is in fact, it has about it a certain degree of plausi- 

 bility not common with its predecessors. Moreover, as it is prob- 

 ably the last objection possible in the premises, it is better to deal 

 with it patiently and set it aside carefully and becomingly. 



It is not quite true that the cranial capacity of these ancient 

 and primitive men has been shown to be nearly equal to that of 

 modern savages, but, not to split hairs, let it pass that it is so, for 

 a comparison of the cranial capacity of the savage and civilized 

 races now existing, and an explanation of their relations in this 

 respect, can be more accurately made, and it may be assumed that 

 no one will be found to deny that a great change of some sort has 

 taken place which is synonymous with what is commonly called 

 the rise from savage to civilized life, even though the cranial 

 capacity of the two classes should be held to be nearly equal 

 which, however, is not, as a rule, the case ; at any rate, the two 

 questions thus presented are as exactly alike as are two equi- 

 lateral triangles, and so the former is fully answered by making 

 a satisfactory disposition of the latter. 



If we first consider, then, the difference in cranial capacity be- 

 tween the lowest savages and the highest civilized men, we shall 

 at least know that all other cases will fall within the limits of this 

 comparison. For this purpose perhaps no better or more reliable 

 information can be found than that furnished by the exhaustive 

 and well-known investigation made by John R. Marshall, F. R. S., 

 Surgeon to University College, London, and reported in the Trans- 

 actions of the Royal Society as early as 1864, and thus before the 

 question we are examining became important. The entire report 

 is very lengthy, extending to the minutest details. 



The subject was an average Bushwoman, selected and sent 

 him on request from southern Africa. She was about fifty years 

 of age and five feet in height. Her brain weighed thirty-one 

 ounces, while that of an average European woman of the same 

 age and height would weigh forty ounces. The ratio of the 

 Bushwoman's brain weight to her entire weight was as one to 

 forty-five, while that of an average Europeon woman of the same 

 age and height would be as one to thirty-seven. Let us now 

 look at the extremes. The cranial capacity of the Bushwoman 

 was sixty-one cubic inches, while the largest cranial capacity 

 known in America is that reported by Morton, of Philadelphia, 

 as being one hundred and fourteen cubic inches, and the largest in 

 Europe is that reported by Wagner, of Germany, as one hundred 

 and fifteen cubic inches. Still, this Bushwoman had a generous 

 cranial capacity considering her race, for the average negro has 

 but from sixty-one to sixty-nine cubic inches the former being 



