140 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part L 



tents of their skulls. It is certain that there may be extraor- 

 dinary mental activity with an extremely small absolute 

 mass of nervous matter ; thus the wonderfully diversified 

 instincts, mental powers, and affections of ants, are gen- 

 erally known, yet their cerebral ganglia are not so large 

 as the quarter of a small pin's head. Under this latter 

 point of view, the brain of an ant is one of the most mar- 

 vellous atoms of matter in the world, perhaps more mar- 

 vellous than the brain of man. 



The belief that there exists in man some close relation 

 between the size of the brain and the development of the 

 intellectual faculties is supported by the comparison of the 

 skulls of savage and civilized races, of ancient and modern 

 people, and by the analogy of the whole vertebrate series. 

 Dr. J. Barnard Davis has proved 70 by many careful meas- 

 urements, that the mean internal capacity of the skull in 

 Europeans is 92.3 cubic inches; in Americans 87.5; in 

 Asiatics 87.1 ; and in Australians only 81.9 inches. Prof. 

 Broca 71 found that skulls from graves in Paris of the 

 nineteenth century, were larger than those from vaults of 

 the twelfth century, in the proportion of 1484 to 1426; 

 and Prichard is persuaded that the present inhabitants of 

 Britain have "much more capacious brain-cases" than the 

 ancient inhabitants. Nevertheless it must be admitted 

 that some skulls of very high antiquity, such as the famous 

 one of Neanderthal, are well developed and capacious. 

 With respect to the lower animals, M. E. Lartet, 72 by 

 comparing the crania of tertiary and recent mammals, be- 

 longing to the same groups, has come to the remarkable 

 conclusion that the brain is generally larger and the con- 

 volutions more complex in the more recent form. On the 



70 'Philosophical Transactions,' 1869, p. 513. 



n Quoted in C. Vogt's 'Lectures on Man,' Eng. translat. 1864, pp. 88, 

 90. Prichard, ' Phys. Hist, of Mankind,' vol. i. 1838, p. 305 

 19 ' Coinptes Rendus des Seances,' etc., June 1, 1868. 



