BRAIN DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION. 537 



the balance by observation, but the routine laborer does not rise 

 to either method, relying on oral instruction and imitation for the 

 little he needs or learns. 



Let us now glance at another peculiarity of savage life. In 

 all civilized communities, and under every form of government, 

 the protection of the person, of life, and of property devolves 

 upon a few members of society who from time to time are ap- 

 pointed or elected for that especial jrarpose. This, except in rare 

 exigencies, relieves the individual from taking any direct meas- 

 ures for the defense of his rights. Indeed, he is forbidden as a 

 rule to do so, but is required in case of assault or trespass to call 

 to his aid those officers who have been selected to defend him. 

 Neither may he make reclamation, obtain redress, or inflict pun- 

 ishment directly in his own behalf. The savage, on the other 

 hand, contrives and maintains all of his own safeguards. All 

 these things he invariably does for himself in obedience to the 

 quickest and strongest of his instincts that of self-preservation. 

 Thus the civilized man is guarded, policed, and protected by 

 others, while the savage is his own patrolman, judge, jury, and 

 executioner. , All the protective devices he needs, at any rate all 

 he can have, he must contrive and enforce for himself. He is his 

 own defender, detective, and avenger. This whole broad field of 

 activity, therefore, which we call domestic police regulation, in- 

 cluding also many other departments of the general government, 

 the savage concentrates in himself and brings within the scope of 

 his own mental, emotional, and physical activity. 



It would be a mistake to conclude, however, from what has 

 been said, that the savage enjoys a wider freedom by reason 

 thereof than the man who lives on the avenue and pays taxes, or 

 strolls in the park and reads the notice, " Keep off the grass." 

 The savage has a government and laws in abundance, all founded 

 on traditions, maxims, customs, signs, omens, religious supersti- 

 tions, quasi canon law, and crude ecclesiastical usages, and the 

 notions and whims of a despotic chief, which reach to every detail 

 of life, but they are all mandatory and restrictive rather than 

 protective in their purpose and character. 



When we couple all this with the amount they must learn, the 

 ingenuity they must exercise, and the exigencies they must en- 

 counter in wrenching even the most precarious livelihood from 

 unreclaimed Nature, is it at all strange that their immature 

 brains are overtaxed, and that every variation in convolutional 

 development is preserved and perpetuated, especially after head 

 growth and cranial capacity have been checked at the point of 

 undue and disadvantageous proportion to the body ? 



Thus it appears, in view of all the facts which modern inves- 

 tigation has disclosed, the merest outlines of which have been here 



