352 AVERAGE WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN IN THE 



This, no doubt, is greatly at variance with doctrines which have lately received much 

 attention and have been extensively discussed, especially with developmentalism in 

 all its forms. Still, an examination of the entire subject of the volume of the brain 

 in the various races of mankind lends considerable support to the view of the specific 

 endowments of these races. In the first place, the following tables will prove that 

 the European races have the heaviest brains among mankind; and they will also 

 show that this superior cerebral magnitude is not so exclusively confined to the 

 "Teutonic Family" of Morton, — i.e., to Swedes, Germans, English, and Anglo- 

 Americans, as he considered it to be. They will prove that the ancient Britons, the 

 Italians, the Russians, Poles, Magyars, Finns and other peoples must be reckoned 

 among the large-brained races. They will indicate that European races are distin- 

 guished from those of all other great divisions by having fewer of the small-brained 

 peoples among them, and that these are less distinctly marked. They will next of 

 all show that, although the Asiatic races in the whole exhibit a slightly lower general 

 average of brain weight, they also may be distinguished into two classes, one of 

 naturally larger-brained people, and the other of smaller-brained people. Among the 

 former are to be placed the Siamese, Burmese, Chinese, and the different tribes 

 inhabiting the southern slope of the Himalayas. Among the latter are the innumera- 

 ble races of India, the Afghans (?) and the Veddahs of Ceylon. I am not aware of 

 any substantial reason for calling in question the position that both the large-brained 

 and the small-brained peoples here distinguished, upon this ground, are not equally 

 to be regarded as aboriginal peoples. They differ materially in the essential point of 

 volume of brain, which defies all the ingenuity of philologers to explain away. In- 

 deed, the great Indo-Germanic, or, to call it by a later name, Aryan hypothesis, when 

 tested by the weight of the brain, which neither climatic nor other secondary influ- 

 ences can modify, is seen to have every appearance of being a baseless vision. 



Again, if we pass over to the other great divisions of mankind, the same arrange- 

 ment is seen to prevail. Among the African races there are two great classes of 

 large-brained and small-brained peoples, and the average weight of the whole falls 

 below that of the European races, which we are not at all disposed to doubt may be 

 taken as some evidence of the mental superiority of these European races. The 

 Kafirs and Zulus stand first, the Negroes of the western coast following close after 

 them, and the various diminutive races which are scattered over a large portion of 

 the continent without having any connection with each other, designated by us 

 Bushmen merely because they live wholly in the wild, segregated in families rather 

 than tribes, and separated from all the various tribes by which they are surrounded, 

 constitute a well marked division of small-brained peoples. Again, that these are all 

 aboriginal peoples, each standing upon an independent basis, is unquestionable. The 



