556 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



Psychologists have formulated certam definite phases through 

 which the evolution of intelligence must have passed in the process 

 of gradual building up of the structure of the mind. The brain in a 

 sense is the incarnation of this mental structure; and it seemed to me 

 that it would be instructive, and perhaps useful, to employ the facts 

 of the evolution of the brain as the cement to unite into one compre- 

 hensive story the accumulations of knowledge concerning the essen- 

 tial facts of man's pedigree and the factors that have contributed to 

 his emergence, which have been gathered by workers in such diverse 

 departments of knowledge as zoology and comparative anatomy, 

 geology and paleontology, and physiology and psychology. 



For it was the evolution of the brain and the ability to profit by 

 experience, which such perfectmg of the cerebral mechanism made 

 possible, that led to the emergence of mammals, as I attempted to 

 demonstrate in opening the discussion on the orig-iti of mammals at 

 the Portsmouth meetmg last year; ^ and from the mammalia, by a 

 continuation of this process of building up the cerebral cortex, or, if 

 you prefer it, the structure of the mind, was eventually formed that 

 living creature which has attamed the most extensive powers of profit- 

 ing by individual experience. 



The study of the brain and mmd, therefore, should have been the 

 first care of the investigator of human origins. Charles Darwin, with 

 his usual perspicuity, fully realized this; but since his time the role 

 of intelligence and its instruments has been almost wholly ignored in 

 these discussions, or when invoked at all wholly irrelevant aspects of 

 the problems have been considered. 



Tliere can be no doubt that this neglect of the evidence which the 

 comparative anatomy of the brain supplies is in large measure due to 

 the discredit cast upon this branch of knowledge by the singularly 

 futile pretensions of some of the foremost anatomists who opposed 

 Darwin's views in the discussions which took place at the meetings 

 of the British Association and elsewhere more than 40 years ago. 



Many of you no doubt are familiar with Charles Kmgsley's delight- 

 ful ridicule of these learned discussions in the pages of "Water 

 Babies." The controversy excited by Sir Richard Owen's conten- 

 tion that the great distmctive feature of the human bram was the 

 possession of a structure that used to be called the hippocampus 

 minor was not unjustly the mark of his scathmg satire. 



The professor had even got up at the British Association and declared that apes had 

 hippopotamus majors in their brains, just as men have. \\Tiich was a shocking thing 

 to say; for, if it were so, what would become of the faith, hope, and charity of immortal 

 millions? You may think that there are other more important differences between 

 you and an ape, such as being able to speak, and make machines, and know right from 

 wrong, and say your prayers, and other little matters of that kind; but that is only a 



> Discussion on the " Origin of Mammals" at the meetings of Section D (Brit. Assoc. Reports, 1911, p. 424). 



