432 THE CRANIOLOGY OE^ MAN AND ANTHROPOID APES. 



other manuscripts, we can harcll}^ doubt that craniology was a subject 

 in which he was deeply interested, or it would not have held so promi- 

 nent a position in this famous picture. It would therefore seem that 

 on an occasion such as the present we can do no higher honor to 

 Hunter's memory, and to that of some of the able men of science who 

 have followed him, than by endeavoring to give, in as few words as 

 possible, a resume of their labors, with especial reference to the sub- 

 ject of craniology and the light which it is capable of throwing on the 

 prehistoric inhabitants of western Europe and of the evolution of the 

 race of men to which we belong. One of the most brilliant and orig- 

 inal thinkers who have occupied the presidential chair of this college, 

 Sir William Lawrence, in his ever memorable lectures on the natural 

 history of man, delivered in this college in the year 1819, from his 

 researches in comparative anatomy foreshadowed the idea that man 

 and apes were derived from common ancestors. Lawrence's opinions 

 were received with a storm of adverse criticism. Mr. Abernethy, for 

 instance, charged him with "-propagating opinions detrimental to 

 society, and endeavoring to enforce them for the purpose of loosening 

 those restraints on which the welfare of mankind depend.'' Time, 

 however, has proved that Lawrence was right, and in the course 

 of lectures delivered in this theater in February, 1891>, Professor 

 Keith, from a careful analysis of the maximum number of anatomical 

 characters conmion to man and apes, arrived at tlie conclusion that 

 they are derived from an identical or a kindred stock. While admitting 

 without reserve that man and apes are structurally almost identical, 

 nevertheless, as ])()inted out by Professor Huxley in the year 1803, 

 thev differ ver}^ material 1}^ as regards the relative size and weight of 

 their })rains, as well as in the complexity of its convolutions. The 

 carcass of a full-grown gorilla is heavier than that of an average-sized 

 European, but it is doubtful whether a healthy adult European's ))rain 

 ever weighed less than 32 ounces, or the brain of the heaviest gorilla 

 ever exceeded 20 ounces in weight." Although at the present time 

 there is this marked relative ditl'erence between the weight of the 

 brain and the form of the skulls of Europeans and apes, this was not 

 always the case, for the calvaria of the earliest discovered human 

 beings were in form not very far removed from those of contemporary 

 anthropoid apes. This fact leads us to in((uii(' into the nature of the con- 

 ditions which have led to the increased capacity of the human cranium, 

 and to the \ast superiorit}^ of man's intelh^ctual endowments over 

 those of all the other primates. If we turn to Hunter's prt^i)aratit)ns in 

 our museum* we find .among them some reinarka))l(> specimens, which 

 he describes as "compressed," "unsynuneti'ical" human crania, 

 which he believed were the result of premature consolidation of one 



« Man's Place in Nature, by Prof. T. Huxley, p. 103. 

 & College Catalogue, Nos. 135, 137, and 139. 



