226 Prof. K. F. H. Marx's Memoir of the Life and 



its kind, as to every thing that characterizes the external form 

 and the structure of the head in man, both princes and learned 

 men contributed. Blumenbach termed it his " Golgotha," 

 and it was a rare circumstance to see the curious and inquir- 

 ing of both sexes wondering and interested in a collection of 

 skulls. 



It perhaps deserves to be recorded, that the subject of this 

 first work of his youth was also that of his last scientific con- 

 tribution, for, after the 3d August 1833, when, upon the exhi- 

 bition of a Hippocratic macrocephalus, he communicated his 

 observations upon it,* he did not again speak in public, ex- 

 cept on the occasion of the eloge of Stromeyer, and the few 

 never-to-be-forgotten words at the anniversary of the hun- 

 dredth year of the Society. 



As Blumenbach anxiously endeavoured to indicate the dis- 

 tinction between the animal and human structure, and with 

 this view adduced, as characteristic, the upright posture of 

 man and the vertical line, so he was equally zealous in vindi- 

 cating to human nature, as such, all the powers and rights of 

 humanity, which, without rating too highly the influence of 

 climate, soil, and hereditary descent, he regarded as the direct 

 consequences of civilization and refinement. Man he con- 

 sidered as " the most perfect domestic animal." In Blumen- 

 bach's inimitable representation of the wild Peter von Ha- 

 meln,\ he shews what man would be without the assistance of 

 society, and how the matter stands as to innate ideas. How 

 even the bony structure of the skull gradually approaches the 

 animal form when unfavourable external localities and civil 

 relations check the development of the higher powers, he exhi- 

 bited in the Cretin skulls of his collection, which were purpose- 

 ly placed near the skull of the orang-outang, and where, at 

 no great distance, the attention of the spectator was attracted 

 by the extremely beautiful form of a female Georgian. 



At a period when negroes and savages were regarded as 

 half animals, and when the idea of the emancipation of slaves 



tion of his Beitriigc zur Naturgescldchte. (Contributions to Natural History, 

 1806. Part i. p. 55-66.) 



* Gott. gel. Anz. 1833. No. 177, p. 1761. 



t Contributions to Natural History, part ii. p. 1-44. 



