492 BRAIN or MAN AND APE COMPARED. CHAP, xxir, 



male human cranium surpasses the largest of the gorilhis 

 ('62 — 34^ = 27}). Secondly, the adult crania of gorillas 

 •which have as yet been measured differ among themselves 

 by nearly one-third, the maximum capacity being 34.5 cubic 

 inches, the minimum 24 cubic inches; and, thirdly, after 

 making all due allowance for difference of size, the cranial 

 capacities of some of the lower apes fall nearly as much, 

 relatively, below those of the higher apes as the latter fall 

 below Man."* 



Are we, then, to conclude that differences in mental power 

 have no intimate connection with the comparative volume of 

 the brain ? We cannot draw such an inference, because the 

 highest and most civilized races of Man exceed in the average 

 of their cranial capacity the lowest races, — the European 

 brain, for example, being larger than that of the negro, and 

 somewhat more convoluted and less symmetrical; and those 

 apes, on the other hand, which approach nearest to Man in 

 the form and volume of their brain being more intelligent 

 than the Lemurs, or still lower divisions of the mammalia, 

 such as the Eodents and Marsupials, which have smaller 

 brains. But the extraordinary intelligence of the elephant 

 and dog, so far exceeding that of the larger part of the Quad- 

 rumana, although their brains are of a type much more re- 

 mote from the human, may serve to convince us how far we 

 are as yet from understanding the real nature of the depend- 

 ence of intellectual superiority on cerebral structure. 



Professor Rolleston, in reference to this subject, remarks, 

 that " even if it were to be proved that the differences be- 

 tween Man's brain and that of the ajse's are differences en- 

 tirely of quantity, there is no reason, in the nature of things, 

 why so many and such weighty differences in degree should 

 not amount to a difference in kind. 



* Huxley, On the Relation of Man to the Rest of the Animal Kingrlom. Lon- 

 don, 1863. 



