186 PART IV. PREPARATORY STAGE. 



for a time or its solution abandoned altogether. Or it may be 

 allowed to stand admittedly imperfect, for time is precious and 

 subtlety is the thief of time. Most likely, as the general prob- 

 lem approaches solution, the special problem will also be 

 clarified. Subtlety is the complement of reckless generalisation, 

 and ends in hair-splitting and in deeper subtleties. Of course, 

 the implication here is that we are treating of the separate 

 aspects of a larger problem rather than of the larger problem 

 itself. The problem should not, naturally, be left shrouded in 

 anything like complete doubt at the end of the enquiry. It is 

 interesting and important to notice in this connection that 

 Aristotle's works almost remind us of note-books where, on the 

 basis of personal and relatively unbiassed study, conclusions 



relates the extreme specialisation into which craniologists were led : 'A rage 

 for skull measurements, vast, vigorous, and heedless, set in on all sides, 

 especially after Lucae had discovered and perfected a method of accurately 

 representing the irregular form of the object studied. More skulls, was 

 henceforth the war-cry; the trunk, extremities, soft tissues, skin and hair, 

 might all go by the board, being counted of no scientific value whatever, 

 Anthropologists, or those who aspired to the title, measured and delineated 

 skulls; museums became veritable cities of skulls, and the reputation of a 

 scientific traveller almost stood or fell with the number of crania which he 

 brought back with him. 



'After two decades of measuring and collecting ever greater quantities of 

 material from foreign lands, and from the so-called primitive or aboriginal 

 races, the inadequacy of Retzius's method became apparent. Far too many 

 intermediate forms were met with, which it was found absolutely impossible 

 to classify by its means. In accordance with the suggestion of the French 

 anthropologist Broca, and of Welcker, Professor of Anatomy at Halle, a third 

 type, the so-called Mesocephalic form, was interposed between the two forms 

 recognised by Retzius. Even this did not suffice, however. In the face of 

 the infinite variety of form of the crania now massed together, a variety 

 only comparable to that of leaves in a forest, this primitively simple scheme, 

 with its four and finally six types, failed through lack of elasticity. Then 

 began complication extending ever further and further. Attention was no 

 longer confined to the, length and breadth, but also to the height of the 

 cranium, high and low (or flat) skulls i.e., hypsicephalic and chamsecephalic 

 varieties being recognised. The facial part of the skull was examined not 

 only from the side, with a view to recording the straightness or obliquity 

 of the profile, but also from the front; and there were thus distinguished 

 long, medium, and short faces, and also broad and narrow facial types. The 

 nasal skeleton, the palate, the orbit, the teeth, and the mandible were investi- 

 gated in turn, and at last all the individual bones of the cranium and face, 

 their irregularities of outline, and their relations to one another, were sub- 

 jected to the closest examination and most subtle measurements, with in- 

 struments of extreme delicacy of construction and ingenuity of design, till, 

 finally, the trifling number of five thousand measurements for every skull 

 found an advocate in the person of the Hungarian Professor v. Torok (whereby 

 the wealth of detail obscured the main objects of study); while, on the other 

 hand, observers deviated into scientific jugglery, like that of the Italian 

 Professor Sergi, who contrived to recognise within the limits of a single 

 small archipelago, the D'Entrecasteaux group of islets near New Guinea, as 

 many as eleven cranial varieties, which were all distinguished by high- 

 sounding descriptive names, such as Lophocephalus brachyclitometopus i etc.' 



"The misuse of Craniometry is also described by Professor Alexander 

 Macalister: 'Despite all the labour that has been bestowed on the subject 



