TO RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES. 197 



approximation in actual cranial capacity of the two sexes in pre- 

 historic times than among modern civilized races. On the assumption 

 that intellectual activity tends to permanent development of brain, 

 it is consistent with the conditions of savage life that it should bring 

 the mental energies of both sexes into nearly equal play. They have 

 equally to encounter the struggle for existence, and have their facul- 

 ties stimulated in a corresponding degree. As nations rise above the 

 purely savage condition of the hunter stage, this relative co-operation 

 of the sexes is subjected to great variations. The laws of Solon with 

 reference to the right of sale of a daughter or sister, and the penalties 

 for the violation of a free woman, show the position of the weaker 

 sex among the Greeks at that early stage to have been a degrading 

 one. But the change was great at a later stage ; and much of our 

 higher civilization is traceable to the early establishment of the 

 European woman's rights, which Christianity subsequently tended 

 to enlarge. The position of woman among the ancient Britons 

 appears to have been one of perfect eqxiality with man. Among the 

 Arabians and other Mohammedan nations, including the modern 

 Turks, the opposite is the case ; and the whole tendency of the creed 

 of the Koran, and the social life among Mohammedan nations, must 

 be towards the intellectual atrophy of woman. Hence it is consistent 

 with the diverse conditions of life that, in so far as cerebral develop- 

 ment is the result of mental activity, a much closer approximation is 

 to be looked for in the mass and weight of brain in the two sexes 

 among savage races, than among nations where woman systematically 

 occupies a condition of servile degradation, or of passive inertness. 



Some interesting results of the actual brain-weights of Negroes and 

 other typical representatives of inferior savage races have been pub- 

 lished, including examples of both sexes ; and although the observa- 

 tions are as yet too few for the deduction of any absolute or very 

 comprehensive conclusions, they furnish a valuable contribution 

 towards this department of ethnical comparison. In 1865, Dr. 

 Peacock published the results of observations on the brains of four 

 Negroes and two Negresses ; and to those he subsequently added a 

 seventh example.* Other examples are included in the following 

 table. But I have excluded some extremes of variation, such as the 

 two given by Mascagni, one of which weighed 1458 grammes, or 



* "Mem. Anthropol. Soc. Lond.," Vol. I., p. 65. 



