92 Original Articles. [ Jan. 
The last peculiarity is concomitant with another equally strik- 
ing. Viewing the Neanderthal forehead with reference to the situation 
of that portion of the brain which it enclosed, we may plainly per- 
ceive that the frontal lobes of the cerebrum have been situated behind 
the outer orbital processes. As far as I have ascertained, we cannot 
say this of man; for, apparently, in all existing races, whose skull has 
not been modified by artificial pressure, the corresponding parts of the 
brain actually extend in front of the orbital processes.* 
Notwithstanding the strong simial tendencies displayed by its 
general features, most of the writers who have described this skull 
do not appear to think otherwise than that it belonged to an indi- 
vidual of our species. There seems to be no doubt, whatever, 
on the part of the Honorary Secretary of the Anthropological 
Society, Mr. Carter Blake, that the Neanderthal fossil is specifically 
identical with Man. He considers it to be the remains of some poor 
idiot or hermit, who died in the cave where the bones were found.f 
His reasons, however, are obviously unsatisfactory. ‘In reply to the 
suggestion,” observes Huxley, “that the skull is that of an idiot, it may 
be urged that the onus probandi lies with those who adopt the hypothesis. 
Idiotcy is compatible with very various forms and capacities of the 
cranium, but I know of none which present the least resemblance to the 
Neanderthal skull.”t Blake admits that its frontal peculiarities give 
the cranium an “ apparent ape-like character ;” but if such peculiar- 
ities be the result of mal-development producing idiotcy, one would be 
equally justified in believing that the form of the skull of the gorilla, 
or chimpanzee, is also produced by disease of the brain. Schaaff- 
hausen, seemingly, would have no hesitation in repudiating the idea 
that the frontal specialities of the fossil are the result of individual 
pathological deformity.§ 
In case it should be suggested that this remarkable cranium has 
received its form from artificial pressure, I may observe that no one 
who has described it seems to entertain such an opinion; indeed its 
symmetry, also noticed by Schaaffhausen, is quite opposed to the 
supposition that the skull has undergone any process of artificial modi- 
fication. 
Huxley, while admitting that it is the most ape-like and most 
brutal of all human skulls yet discovered, states that it is “closely 
approached” by some Australian forms, and “even more closely affined 
to the skulls of certain ancient people, who inhabited Denmark during 
the Stone period.” || I have no intention to deny that there are gene- 
* The Corcomroo skull, noticed in the previous footnote, although closely 
approximated to the Neanderthal one in its low forehead, and this alone, is strietly 
human in the forward extension of the frontal lobes of the brain relatively to the 
outer orbital processes. 
+ See ‘ Geologist,’ vol. V. p. 207. 
t See Lyell’s ‘Geological Antiquity of Man,’ p. 85. 
§ The writer of an article on Lyell’s ‘Geological Antiquity of Man,’ in the last 
number of the ‘Quarterly Review,’ summarily disposes of the Neanderthal skull 
with the gratuitous assertion, that it is quite removed from the pithecoid type, and 
possibly belonged to an idiot. 
|| ‘ Man’s Place in Nature,’ p. 157. 
