IX 
LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION IN MAN 
189 
last numbers, however, are deduced from comparatively fewspeci- 
mens, and may be below the average, just as a small number of 
Finns and Cossacks give 98 cubic inches, or considerably more 
than that of the German races. It is evident, therefore, that the 
absolute bulk of the brain is not necessarily much less in savage 
than in civilised man, for Esquimaux skulls are known with a 
capacity of 1 1 3 inches, or hardly less than the largest among 
Europeans. But what is still more extraordinary, the few 
remains yet known of prehistoric man do not indicate any 
material diminution in the size of the brain case. A Swiss 
skull of the stone age, found in the lake dwelling of Meilen, 
corresponded exactly to that of a Swiss youth of the present 
day. The celebrated Neanderthal skull had a larger circum- 
ference than the average, and its capacity, indicating actual 
mass of brain, is estimated to have been not less than 75 
cubic inches, or nearly the average of existing Australian 
crania. The Engis skull, perhaps the oldest known, and 
which, according to Sir John Lubbock, “there seems no doubt 
was really contemporary with the mammoth and the cave 
bear,” is yet, according to Professor Huxley, “ a fair average 
skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might 
have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage.” Of the 
cave men of Les Eyzies, who were undoubtedly contemporary 
with the reindeer in the south of France, Professor Paul 
Broca says (in a paper read before the Congress of Pre- 
historic Archaeology in 1868): “The great capacity of the 
brain, the development of the frontal region, the fine elliptical 
form of the anterior part of the profile of the skull, are incon- 
testible characteristics of superiority, such as we are accus- 
tomed to meet with in civilised races ; ” yet the great breadth 
of the face, the enormous development of the ascending ramus 
of the lower jaw, the extent and roughness of the surfaces for 
the attachment of the muscles, especially of the masticators, 
and the extraordinary development of the ridge of the femur, 
indicate great muscular power, and the habits of a savage and 
brutal race. 
These facts might almost make us doubt whether the size 
of the brain is in any direct way an index of mental power, 
had we not the most conclusive evidence that it is so, in the 
fact that, whenever an adult male European has a skull less 
