SECTION H.— ANTHROPOLOGY. 



THE REGIONAL BALANCE OF 

 RACIAL EVOLUTION. 



ADDRESS BY 



PROFESSOR H. J. FLEURE, D.Sc, 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



I. Introduction. 



A MEETING of the British Association at Oxford naturally recalls to one's 

 mind the famous stand of Huxley for the Darwinian theory of descent 

 with modification at the 1860 Meeting, as well as his speech at the 1894 

 Meeting in this city. At the present time there is no longer any doubt 

 among scientific workers that the body and mind of man are the outcome 

 of a long process of descent with modification, and that all life on earth is 

 genetically one. The unity of animate nature is accepted without reserve 

 or qualification, despite little outbursts where old modes of thought linger 

 on the fringes of civilisation. These outbursts serve only to demonstrate 

 the widespread applicability of the principle that survivals tend to have a 

 peripheral distribution. 



The general acceptance of the idea makes it important to survey 

 what is known and thought as to how, when, and where the remarkable 

 evolution of modern man worked itself out. Of the early stages of man's 

 •evolution little need be said here, as Elliot Smith ^ has recently dealt with 

 it in a fresh and masterly fashion. He has emphasised the correlated 

 improvement of brain and eyes as the key fact. Stereoscopic vision has 

 heen promoted by the habit of walking on two legs on the ground, for this 

 ireed the hands to carry objects to the mouth, bringing them within range 

 of minute observation by the eyes working together. Improved ajij^recia- 

 tion of objects was, in his opinion, one factor in the development of names 

 for them. 



The period of pre-natal life in apes ancestral to man was probably 

 220 days, as compared with the period of 280 ± accepted for mankind. 

 'This represents a change of great importance, for it appears to have led 

 to a marked continuance of growth of the head region and to the j)ostpone- 

 ment of the hardening of the frontal and facial elements that must once 

 have occurred soon after birth, i.e. soon after the 220th day, but which 

 now is unnecessary at that stage. Increased growth of the fore-brain is 

 a main feature of mankind. We must not, and need not, argue that this 

 increase occurred somehow because it would be useful to its possessors ; 

 it is nearer the truth to say that it did occur, and that those who showed it 

 were thereby enabled to take advantage of opportunities their predecessors 



1 Smith, G. Elliot. Lectures on the Evolution of Man, 1924. 



