270 DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



suppose that the individuals with the more educable 

 brain as they appeared profited by it, that is to say, did 

 become more educated, and so defeated their rivals, and 

 survived and transmitted their increased size of brain 

 little by little in succeeding generations. There is no 

 difficulty about admitting this supposition in regard to 

 the passage from higher ape-like creatures to later forms 

 having a full-sized brain, such as we find in the 

 Neanderthal man and in some Australians. But we are 

 met here by what looks, at first sight, as a fact 

 inconsistent with our view. The obvious increased 

 educability and consequent increased education of lower 

 races of man by the circumstances of their lives, places 

 them clearly enough in a position of great advantage 

 over the higher surviving apes. But when we compare 

 the actual mental accomplishments of the highest 

 civilized races of man with those of big-brained savages, 

 we find that a large proportion of individuals in the 

 civilized races are much farther ahead of the lower savage 

 races than most of these are ahead of the higher apes. 

 Newton, Shakespeare, and Darwin are in mental accom- 

 plishment farther away from an Australian black, or even 

 a Congo negro, than these " savages " are from a gorilla 

 or a chimpanzee. Yet the difference when we compare 

 the size and the abundance of the convolutions of the 

 brain of the European philosopher and the black-fellow 

 does not seem, superficially, to be proportionate to the 

 difference in the mental performance of the two. No 

 minute study of the microscopic differences in the 

 structure of the two brains has, as yet, been made, and it 

 is probable that there is a greater difference here than in 

 the mere shape of the brain-mass. It seems that the 

 " educability " of the brain measured by its size is little 

 greater in the one group of men than in the other. 

 And it is found so far as observation and experiment 



