September 26, 19 12] 



NATURE 



119 



vestigation can detect no indubitable trace of any such 

 influences having: been at work. 



I need offer no apology for repeating and emphasis- 

 ing some of the points brought forward in Dr. Rivers's 

 deeply instructive address; for his lucid and convincing 

 account of the circumstances that had compelled him 

 to change his attitude toward the main problems of 

 the history of human society in Melanesia first brought 

 home to me the fact, which 1 had not clearly realised 

 until then, that in my own experience, working in a 

 very different domain of anthropology on the opposite 

 side of the world, I had passed through phases pre- 

 cisely analogous to those described so graphically by 

 Dr. 'Rivers. He told us that in his first attempts to 

 trace out "the evolution of custom and institution" 

 he started from the assumption that "where similari- 

 ties are found in different parts of the world they are 

 due to independent origin and development, which in 

 turn is ascribed to the fundamental similarity of the 

 workings of the human mind all over the world, so 

 that, given similar conditions, similar customs and 

 institutions will come into existence and develop on 

 the same lines." But as he became more familiar 

 with the materials of his research lie found that such 

 an attitude would not admit of an adequate explana- 

 tion of the facts, and he was forced to confess that 

 he "had ignored considerations arising from racial 

 mixture and the blending of cultures." 



I recall these statements to your recollection now, 

 not merelv for the purpose of emphasising the far- 

 reaching significance of an address which is certain to 

 be loolced back upon as one of the most distinctive 

 and influential utterances from this presidential chair, 

 nor yet with the object of telling you how, in the 

 course of my investigations upon the history of the 

 people in the Nile Valley," I also started out to search 

 for evidences of evolution, but gradually came to 

 realise that the facts of racial admixture and the 

 blending of cultures were far more obtrusive and 

 significant. Mv intention is rather to investigate the 

 domain of anthropology in which unequivocal evolu- 

 tionary factors have played a definite role ; I refer to 

 the studv of man's genealogy, and the forces that 

 determined the precise line of development his ances- 

 tors pursued and ultimately fashioned man himself. 



I suppose it is inevitable in these days that one 

 trained in biological ways of thought should approach 

 the problems of anthropology with the idea of in- 

 dependent development as his guiding principle; but 

 the conviction must be reached sooner or later, by 

 evervone who conscientiously, and with an open mind, 

 seelis to answer most of the questions relating to 

 man's history and achievements — certainly the chapters 

 in that history which come within the scope of the 

 last sixty centuries — that evolution yields a surpris- 

 ingly small contribution to the solution of the difficul- 

 ties which present themselves. Most of the factors 

 that call for investigation concerning the history of 

 man and his works are unquestionably the direct 

 effects of migrations and the intermingling of races 

 and cultures. 



But I would not have you misunderstand my mean- 

 ing. Nothine could be further from my intention than 

 to question the realitv of evolution, as understood bv 

 Charles Darwin, and the tremendous influence it is 

 still exerting upon mankind. In respect of certain 

 perils man may, perhaps, have protected himself from 

 " the general operation of that process of natural 

 selection and surviv.il of the fittest which, up to liis 

 appearance, had been the law of the living world " 

 (Sir Rav Lankester) ; but it has been demonstrated 

 quite definitelv that man, in virtue of these very 

 heightened powers, which, to some observers, seem 



5 "The Ancient Esypt^aTK 



2239, VOL. go] 



' Harpers, 191 



to have secured him an immunity from what Sir Rav 

 Lankester calls "nature's inexorable discipline of 

 death," is constantly exposing himself to new condi- 

 tions that favour the operations of natural selection, 

 as well as other forms of " selection " which his in- 

 creased powers of intelligent choice and his subjection 

 to the influences of fashion expose him. 



It is not, however, with such contentious matters as 

 the precise mode of operation of evolution at the 

 present day that I propose to deal ; nor yet with the 

 discussion of when and how the races of mankind 

 became specialised and differentiated the one from the 

 other. It is the much older story of the origin of man 

 himself and the first rlimmerings of human charac- 

 teristics amidst even the remotest of his ancestors to 

 which I invite you to give some consideration to-day. 



In a recently published book ^ the statement is made 

 that "the uncertainties as to man's pedigree and 

 antiquity are still great, and it is undeniably difficult to 

 discover the factors in his emergence and ascent." 

 There is undoubtedly the widest divergence of opinion 

 as to the precise pedigree ; nevertheless, there seems 

 to me to be ample evidence now available to justify 

 us sketching the genealogy of man and confidently 

 drawing up his pedigree as far back as Eocene times 

 — a matter of a million years or so — with at least as 

 much certainty of detail and completeness as in the 

 case of any other recent mammal ; and if all the factors 

 in his emergence are not yet known, there is one 

 unquestionable, tangible factor that we can seize hold 

 of and examine — the steady and uniform development 

 of the brain along a well-defined course throughout 

 the primates right up to man — which must give us 

 the fundamental reason for "man's emergence and 

 ascent," whatever other factors may contribute toward 

 that consummation. 



What I propose to attempt is to put into serial order 

 those vertebrates which we have reason to believe are 

 the nearest relatives to man's ancestors now available 

 for examination, and to determine what outstanding 

 changes in the structure of the cerebral hemispheres 

 have taken place at each upward step that may help 

 to explain tlie gradual acquirement of the distinctively 

 human mental faculties, which, by immeasurably in- 

 creasing the power of adaptation to varying circum- 

 stances and modifying the process of se.xual selection, 

 have made man what he is at present. 



The links in the chain of our ancestry supplied by 

 palaeontologv are few, and of doubtful value, if con- 

 sidered apart from the illumination of comparative 

 anatomy. 



Psychologists have formulated certain definite phases 

 through which the evolution of intelligence must have 

 passed in the process of gradual building-up of the 

 structure of the mind. The brain in a sense is the 

 incarnation of this mental structure; and it seemed 

 to me that it would be instructive, and perhaps_ use- 

 ful, to employ the facts of the evolution of the brain as 

 the cement to unite into one comprehensive story the 

 accumulations of knowledge concerning the essential 

 facts of man's pedigree, and the factors that have 

 contributed to his emergence, which have been 

 gathered by workers in such diverse departments of 

 knowledge as zoology and comparative anatomy, 

 geolog-v and pateontology, and physiology and 

 psvchologv- 



For it was the evolution of the brain and the ability 

 to profit bv experience, which .such perfecting of the 

 cerebral mechanism made possible, that led to the 

 emergence of mammals, as I attempted to demonstrate 

 in onening the discussion on the origin of mammals 

 .Tt the Portsmouth meeting last year * ; and from 



3 J. A. Thomson anH P. Geddes, " Evolution," 1917, p. 102. 

 ^ Discussion on the " Origin of Mammals" at the meetings of Section D 

 (lirit. Assoc. Reports, 1911. p. 424). 



