THE SKULL AS A BASIS FOR RACE CLASSIFICATION. 33 
portions of length and breadth are farthest removed from 
the lower animals, so we must look upon it as a higher type 
and an improvement upon the dolichocephalic; but among 
primitive peoples its possessor is not necessarily a highly 
civilised person. 
It is essential that the skulls of civilised peoples should 
be examined after the same method as that followed in the 
case of primitive races so as to obtain uniformity of results, 
but the apparently incongruous associations which follow 
are somewhat confusing, since the greater average of skull 
capacity removes much of the common platform which exists 
for comparisons among primitive races. Besides, the causes 
which lead to variation are probably much more operative 
among civilised than among primitive peoples. 
The classification of skulls, therefore, on the lines described 
carries most weight in the case of primitive races, and 
although the skulls of civilised races are classified upon 
similar lines, yet the value of the classification is diminished, 
since the amount and quality of the brain are quite inde- 
pendent of the proportionate length and width of the box 
which contains and surrounds it. 
Apples fell for many a year before Newton found, in that 
circumstance, an aid to the construction of the Law of 
Gravity; material for suitable weapons had been plentiful 
for centuries before the first Anthropoid Ape lifted the lucky 
cudgel, which is supposed to have revolutionised his own 
status in the animal kingdom, and to have conferred upon 
his descendants that boundless legacy of the first step towards 
the erect attitude, the full benefits of which have been the 
birthright of the human race for countless ages. In both 
eases the starting-point in the new development was found 
in the brain rather than in the environment. The study 
of the evolution of the Cranium is therefore in reality a 
study of the evolution of the Brain. 
