ix LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION IN MAN 189 



last numbers, however, are deduced from comparatively few speci- 

 mens, and may be below the average, just as a small number of 

 Finns and Cossacks give 98 cubic inches, or considerably more 

 than that of the German races. It is evident, therefore, that the 

 absolute bulk of the brain is not necessarily much less in savage 

 than in civilised man, for Esquimaux skulls are known with a 

 capacity of 1 1 3 inches, or hardly less than the largest among 

 Europeans. But what is still more extraordinary, the few 

 remains yet known of prehistoric man do not indicate any 

 material diminution in the size of the brain case. A Swiss 

 skull of the stone age, found in the lake dwelling of Meilen, 

 corresponded exactly to that of a Swiss youth of the present 

 day. The celebrated Neanderthal skull had a larger circum- 

 ference than the average, and its capacity, indicating actual 

 mass of brain, is estimated to have been not less than 75 

 cubic inches, or nearly the average of existing Australian 

 crania. The Engis skull, perhaps the oldest known, and 

 which, according to Sir John Lubbock, "there seems no doubt 

 was really contemporary with the mammoth and the cave 

 bear," is yet, according to Professor Huxley, " a fair average 

 skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might 

 have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage." Of the 

 cave men of Les Eyzies, who were undoubtedly contemporary 

 with the reindeer in the south of France, Professor Paul 

 Broca says (in a paper read before the Congress of Pre- 

 historic Archaeology in 1868): "The great capacity of the 

 brain, the development of the frontal region, the fine elliptical 

 form of the anterior part of the profile of the skull, are incon- 

 testible characteristics of superiority, such as we are accus- 

 tomed to meet with in civilised races ; " yet the great breadth 

 of the face, the enormous development of the ascending ramus 

 of the lower jaw, the extent and roughness of the surfaces for 

 the attachment of the muscles, especially of the masticators, 

 and the extraordinary development of the ridge of the femur, 

 indicate great muscular power, and the habits of a savage and 

 brutal race. 



These facts might almost make us doubt whether the size 

 of the brain is in any direct way an index of mental power, 

 had we not the most conclusive evidence that it is so, in the 

 fact that, whenever an adult male European has a skull less 



