NATURAL SELECTION INSUFFICIENT TO DEVELOPMENT OF MAN. 19 
ficial to an internal and very forcible characteristic. The 
smooth skin is an obvious and striking peculiarity of man ; ’ 
but if anyone were asked what above all else made him what 
he is, he would probably reply, the brain. Let us see, then, 
if it seems likely that the human brain was developed by 
natural selection from the brute brain. The size of the human 
brain is, in comparison with that of all other animals, enor- 
mous. This superiority in magnitude, accompanied as it is by 
certain other less obvious and less indisputable marks of differ- 
ence, seemed to Professor Owen sufficient to justify him in 
placing man in a class by himself — that of Archencephala, or 
chief-brained animals. The average brain of the highest an- 
thropoid apes — the orang-utan or the gorilla — does not reach 
above 28 or 30 cubic inches, while the average internal capacity 
of the cranium in the Teutonic family of man amounts to 94 
cubic inches. The difference is enormous ; but if we could 
trace the growth of that difference step by step from one to 
the other, and see how at every step the owner of the larger 
brain would gain thereby an advantage over the smaller, there 
would be nothing in this difference to take it out of the 
ordinary action of natural selection. If the primitive ffint- 
chippers had brains not much larger than apes, if those of the 
modern savages were a little bigger still, and if, as we travelled 
towards the civilised and intellectual periods of history, we 
found the brain steadily increasing, the change would be in 
full accordance with other illustrations of the law. But what 
is the case ? So far as investigation has yet gone, there is no 
great difference in the average cranial capacity of man under 
any circumstances. That of the Esquimaux is 91 cubic inches, 
of the Negro 85, of the Australians and Tasmanians 82, while 
even that of the Bushman — the lowest specimen of living 
humanity with which we are acquainted — is 77. Nor do 
the few skulls of the earlier races, which have yet been dis- 
covered, tell any different tale. The celebrated Engis skull, 
which was probably contemporary with the mammoth and the 
cave bear, has been pronounced by Professor Huxley to be “ a 
fair average skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, 
or might have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage.” 
But the brains of any ape would have lain in a corner of 
it, and left a large vacancy. If the ape passed into the 
savage, the change in the brain was made by a leap. Now is 
there anything to make such a leap likely ? Is there anything 
in this enormous increase of brain which would give its pos- 
sessor an advantage over smaller brains, and enable him to 
survive while they perished ? No doubt a larger brain has an 
advantage over a smaller one. The brain is the organ of the 
greatest power that we know — the power of mind. It is the 
