432 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



must be preceded, if it is to be effective, by progress in organic 

 evolution. A certain degree of organic evolution is a conditio 

 sine qua nan of all traditional progress. For instance, had the 

 human species remained in the stage in which the savage popula- 

 tions of Central Africa still find themselves to-day, all the progress 

 in himian institutions which we justly consider the greatest 

 triumph of man over his animal ancestors would necessarily 

 have remained unknown. It is probable that cerebral progress, 

 which is the instrument of what we term traditional progress, 

 is dependent on an increase, amongst other things, of the volume 

 of the brain. Thus, the average brain- weight of the adult male 

 members of the white species is from 1,350 to 1,360 grammes, 

 that of an adult male member of the negro species 1,262 grammes, 

 while that of the gorilla is but 550 grammes, on an average, for 

 it varies considerably. If the difference between the civiHsed 

 European of to-day and the Wood-Veddah of Ceylon is greater 

 than the difference between the Wood-Veddah and the higher 

 apes, it is due not only to the traditional progress of the former, 

 but also to his organic progress. The latter forms the indispens- 

 able basis on which the superstructure of the former can be 

 built.i 



It is true that organic and traditional progress do not always 



"^ It is often objected that the cerebral differences between the lower 

 races of man and the anthropoid apes — ^the gibbon, for instance, who is 

 more closely allied to the human species than the orang-outang or the 

 chimpanzee — are too great to be able to admit of a rapprochement between 

 them. But this objection does not take count of the fact that all attempts 

 to argue from the physiological to the psychological are extremely prob- 

 lematical in their results. The old theories of a necessary relation between 

 brain volume and brain capacity are largely discredited; and we must 

 beware of following the example of a Russian savant who was fond of 

 insisting on the inferior size and weight of the average brain of women 

 as convincing proof of female incapacity for discharging the duties of 

 citizenship ; and who was found, after his death, to possess himself a brain 

 inferior in volume and weight to the average female brain. We are 

 entirely unable to discern the exact relations existing between the physio- 

 logical and psychological capacities of the organ of thought. 



