Collected essays

MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE

AND OTHER

ANTHROPOLOGICAL ESSAYS

BY

THOMAS H. HUXLEY

NEW YORK

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1896

Authorized Edition.

GIFT

H9

PREFACE

I AM very well aware that the old are prone to
regard their early performances with much more
interest than their contemporaries of a younger
generation are likely to take in them ; moreover,
I freely admit that my younger contemporaries
might employ their time better than in perusing
the three essays, written thirty-two years ago,
which occupy the first place in this volume. This
confession is the more needful, inasmuch as all the
premisses of the argument set forth in "Man's
Place in Nature " and most of the conclusions
deduced from them, are now to be met with among
other well-established and, indeed, elementary
truths, in the text-books.

Paradoxical as the statement may seem, how-
ever, it is just because every well-informed student
of biology ought to be tempted to throw these
essays, and especially the second, "On the
Relations of Man to the Lower Animals," aside, as
a fair mathematician might dispense with the
reperusal of Cocker's arithmetic, that I think ic

M722586

VI PREFACE

worth while to reprint them ; and entertain
the hope that the story of their origin and early
fate may not be devoid of a certain antiquarian
interest, eveo if it possess no other.

In 1854, it became my duty to teach the
principles of biological science with especial refer-
ence to paleontology. The first result of address-
ing myself to the business I had taken in hand,
was the discovery of my own lamentable ignorance
in respect of many parts of the vast field of know-
ledge through which I had undertaken to guide
others. The second result was a resolution to
amend this state of things to the best of my
ability ; to which end, I surveyed the ground ;
and having made out what were the main posi-
tions to be captured, I eame to the conclusion
that I must try to carry them by concentrating all
the energy I possessed upon each in turn. So I
set to work to know something of my own know-
ledge of all the various disciplines included under
the head of Biology ; and to acquaint myself, at first
hand, with the evidence for and against the extant
solutions of the greater problems of that science.
I have reason to believe that wise heads were
shaken over my apparent divagations — now into
the province of Physiology or Histology, now into
that of Comparative Anatomy, of Development, of
Zoology, of Paleontology, or of Ethnology. But
even at this time, when I am, or ought to be, so
much wiser, I really do not see that I could have

PREFACE vii

done better. And my method had this great ad-
vantage ; it involved the certainty that somebody
would profit by my effort to teach properly. What-
ever my hearers might do, I myself always learned
something by lecturing. And to those who have
experience of what a heart-breaking business
teaching is — how much the can't-learns and won't-
learns and don't-learns predominate over the do-
learns — will understand the comfort of that re-
flection.

Among the many problems which came under
my consideration, the position of the human
species in zoological classification was one of the
most serious. Indeed, at that time, it was a burn-
ing question in the sense that those who touched
it were almost certain to burn their fingers severely.
It was not so very long since my kind friend Sir
William Lawrence, one of the ablest men whom
I have known, had been well-nigh ostracized
for his book " On Man," which now might be read
in a Sunday-school without surprising anybody ;
it was only a few years, since the electors to the
chair of Natural History in a famous northern
university had refused to invite a very distinguished
man to occupy it because he advocated the
doctrine of the diversity of species of mankind,
or what was called " polygeny." Even among those
who considered man from the point of view, not of
vulgar prejudice, but of science, opinions lay poles
asunder. Linnaeus had taken one view, Cuvier

nil PREFACE

another; and, among my senior contemporaries, men
like Lyell, regarded by many as revolutionaries of
the deepest dye, were strongly opposed to anything
which tended to break down the barrier between
man and the rest of the animal world.

My own mind was by no means definitely made
up about this matter when, in the year 1857, a
paper was read before the Linnaean Society " On
the Characters, Principles of Division and Primary
Groups of the Class Mammalia/' in which certain
anatomical features of the brain were said to be
" peculiar to the genus Homo'' and were made
the chief ground for separating that genus from all
other mammals, and placing him in a division,
" Archencephala," apart from, and superior to, all
the rest. As these statements did not agree with
the opinions I had formed, I set to work to rein-
vestigate the subject; and soon satisfied myself
that the structures in question were not peculiar to
Man, but were shared by him with all the higher
and many of the lower apes. I embarked in no
public discussion of these matters; but my
attention being thus drawn to them, I studied the
whole question of the structural relations of Man
to the next lower existing forms, with much care.
And, of course, I embodied my conclusions in
my teaching.

Matters were at this point, when " The Origin of
Species " appeared. The weighty sentence " Light
will be thrown on the origin of man and his

PREFACE IX

history" (1st ed. p. 488) was not only in full
harmony with the conclusions at which I had
arrived, respecting the structural relations of
apes and men, but was strongly supported by
them. And inasmuch as Development and Verte-
brate Anatomy were not among Mr. Darwin'*?
many specialities, it appeared to me that I should
not be intruding on the ground he had made
his own, if I discussed this part of the general
question. In fact, I thought that I might probably
serve the cause of evolution by doing so.

Some experience of popular lecturing had
convinced me that the necessity of making things
plain to uninstructed people, was one of the very
best means of clearing up the obscure corners in
one's own mind. So, in 1860, I took the Relation
of Man to the Lower Animals, for the subject of
the six lectures to working men which it was my
duty to deliver. It was also in 1860, that this
topic was discussed before a jury of experts, at
the meeting of the British Association at Oxford ;
and, from that time, a sort of running fight on
the same subject was carried on, until it cul-
minated at the Cambridge meeting of the
Association in 1862, by my friend Sir W.
Flower's public demonstration of the existence
in the apes of those cerebral characters which had
been said to be peculiar to man.

" Magna est veritas et prasvalebit ! " Truth is
great, certainly, but, considering her greatness, it is

X PREFACE

curious what a long time she is apt to take about
prevailing. When, towards the end of 1862, I
had finished writing " Man's Place in Nature,"
I could say with a good conscience, that my
conclusions "had not been formed hastily or
enunciated crudely." I thought I had earned
the right to publish them and even fancied I
might be thanked, rather than reproved, for so
doing. However, in my anxiety to promulgate
nothing erroneous, I asked a highly competent
anatomist and very good friend of mine to look
through my proofs and, if he could, point out any
errors of fact. I was well pleased when he
returned them without criticism on that score ;
but my satisfaction was speedily dashed by the
very earnest warning, as to the consequences of
publication, which my friend's interest in my
welfare led him to give. But, as I have confessed
elsewhere, when I was a young man, there was
just a little — a mere soupcon — in my composition
of that tenacity of purpose which has another
name ; and I felt sure that all the evil things
prophesied would not be so painful to me as the
giving up that which I had resolved to do, upon
grounds which I conceived to be right. So the
book came out ; and I must do my friend the
justice to say that his forecast was completely
justified. The Boreas of criticism blew his
hardest blasts of misrepresentation and ridicule
for some years ; and I was even as one of the

PREFACE xi

wicked. Indeed, it surprises me, at times, to
think how any one who had sunk so low could
since have emerged into, at any rate, relative
respectability. Personally, like the non-corvine
personages in the Ingoldsby legend, I did not feel
" one penny the worse." Translated into several
languages, the book reached a wider public than
I had ever hoped for ; being largely helped, I
imagine, by the Ernulphine advertisements to
which I have referred. It has had the honour
of being freely utilized, without acknowledg-
ment, by writers of repute; and, finally, it
achieved the fate, which is the euthanasia of a
scientific work, of being inclosed among the rubble
of the foundations of later knowledge and for-
gotten.

To my observation, human nature has not
sensibly changed during the last thirty years.
I doubt not that there are truths as plainly
obvious and as generally denied, as those con-
tained in " Man's Place in Nature," now await-
ing enunciation. If there is a young man of the
present generation, who has taken as much trouble
as I did to assure himself that they are truths, let
him come out with them, without troubling his
head about the barking of the dogs of St. Ernul-
phus. " Veritas praevalebit " — some day ; and, even
if she does not prevail in his time, he himself will
be all the better and the wiser for having tried to
help her. And let him recollect that such great

Xll PREFACE

reward is full payment for all his labour and
pains.

" Man's Place in Nature," perhaps, may still
be useful as an introduction to the subject ; but,
as any interest which attaches to it must be
mainly historical, I have thought it right to
leave the essays untouched. The history of the
long controversy about the structure of the brain,
following upon the second dissertation, in the
original edition, however, is omitted. The verdict
of science has long since been pronounced upon
the questions at issue ; and no good purpose can
be served by preserving the memory of the details
of the suit.

In many passages, the reader who is acquainted
with the present state of science, will observe
much room for addition; but, in all cases, the
supplements required, are, I believe, either in-
different to the argument or would strengthen ifc.

CONTENTS
i

PACK
ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APES 1

II

ON THE RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS 77

III
ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 157

«te.

IV

ON THE METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY [1865] . 209

V

ON SOME FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH ETHNOLOGY [1871] 253

ARYAN (

VI

QUESTION [1890] 271

*#* The first three Essays were published in January, 1863,
under the title of " Man's Place in Nature " ; the fourth essay
appeared in the Fortnightly Review, the fifth in the Contemporary
Review, and they were re published in Critiques and Addresses.
The Essay on the Aryan Question appeared in the Nineteenth
Century for November, 1890.

MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER

THE greater part- of the substance of the fol-
lowing Essays has already been published in the
form of Oral Discourses, addressed to widely
different audiences during the past three years.

Upon the subject of the second Essay, I delivered
six Lectures to the Working Men in 1860, and
two, to the members of the Philosophical Institu-
tion of Edinburgh in 1862. The readiness with
which my audience followed my arguments, on
these occasions, encourages me to hope that I
have not committed the error, into which working
men of science so readily fall, of obscuring my
meaning by unnecessary technicalities : while, the
length of the period during which the subject,
under its various aspects has been present to my
mind, may suffice to satisfy the Reader that, my
conclusions, be they right or be they wrong, have
not been formed hastily or enunciated crudely.

T. H. H.

LONDON : January, 1863,

ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE
MAN-LIKE APES

ANCIENT traditions, when tested by the severe
processes of modern investigation, commonly
enough fade away into mere dreams : but it is
singular how often the dream turns out to have
been a half-waking one, presaging a reality.
Ovid foreshadowed the discoveries of the geo-
logist: the Atlantis was an imagination, but
Columbus found a western world : and though the
quaint forms of Centaurs and Satyrs have an
existence only in the realms of art, creatures
approaching man more nearly than they in
essential structure, and yet as thoroughly brutal
as the goat's or horse's half of the mythical
compound, are now not only known, but notorious.

I have not met with any notice of one of
these MAN-LIKE APES of earlier date than that
contained in Pigafetta's "Description of the

165

THE MAN-LIKE APES

kingdom of Congo," 1 drawn up from the notes
of a Portuguese sailor, Eduardo Lopez, and pub-
lished in 1598. The tenth chapter of this work
is entitled " De Animalibus quse in hac provincia

FIG. 1. — Simise magnatum delicise. — De Bry, 1598.

reperiuntur," and contains a brief passage to the
effect that " in the Songan country, on the banks
of the Zaire, there are multitudes of apes, which

1 REGNTJM CONGO : hoc est VERA DESCRIPTIO REGNI
AFRICANI QUOD TAM AB INCOLIS QUAM LUSITANIS CONGUS
A.PPELLATTJR, per Philippum Pigafettam, olim ex Edoardo
Lopez acroainatis lingua Italica excerpta, num Latio sennone
donata ab August. Cassiod. Reinio. Iconibus et imaginibns
rerum memorabilium quasi vivis, opera et industria Joan.
Theodori et Joan. Israelis de Bry, fratrum exornata. Franco*
furti, MDXOVIII.

I THE PONGO AND ENGECO

afford great delight to the nobles by imitating
human gestures." As this might apply to almost
any kind of apes, I should have thought little
of it, had not the brothers De Bry, whose
engravings illustrate the work, thought fit, in
their eleventh " Argumentum," to figure two of
these " Simisa magnatum deliciaB." So much of
the plate as contains these apes is faithfully copied
in the woodcut (Fig, 1), and it will be observed
that they are tail-less, long-armed, and large-
eared ; and about the size of Chimpanzees. It
may be that these apes are as much figments of
the imagination of the ingenious brothers as the
winged, two-legged, crocodile-headed dragon which
adorns the same plate ; or, on the other hand, it
may be that the artists have constructed their
drawings from some essentially faithful description
of a Gorilla or a Chimpanzee. And, in either
case, though these figures are worth a passing-
notice, the oldest trustworthy and definite
accounts of any animal of this kind date from
the 17th century, and are due to an Englishman.
The first edition of that most amusing old
book, "Purchas his Pilgrimage," was published
in 1613, and therein are to be found many
references to the statements of one whom Purchas
terms "Andrew Battell (my neere neighbour,
dwelling at Leigh in Essex) who served under
Manuel Silvera Perera, Governor under the King
of Spaine, at his city of Saint Paul, and with him

4 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

went farre into the countrey of Angola " ; and
again, " my friend, Andrew Battle, who lived in
the kingdom of Congo many yeares," and who,
" upon some quarell betwixt the Portugals (among
whom he was a sergeant of a band) and him,
lived eight or nine moneths in the woodes."
From this weather-beaten old soldier, Purchas
was amazed to hear "of a kinde of Great Apes,
if they might so bee termed, of the height of a
man, but twice as bigge in feature of their limmes,
with strength proportionable, hairie all over,
otherwise altogether like men and women in their
whole bodily shape.1 They lived on such wilde
fruits as the trees and woods yielded, and in the
night time lodged on the trees."

This extract is, however, less detailed and clear
in its statements than a passage in the third
chapter of the second part of another work —
" Purchas his Pilgrimes," published in 1625, by
the same author — which has been often, though
hardly ever quite rightly, cited. The chapter is
entitled, " The strange adventures of Andrew
Battell, of Leigh in Essex, sent by the Portugals
prisoner to Angola, who lived there and in the
adioining regions neere eighteene yeeres." And
the sixth section of this chapter is headed — " Of
the Provinces of Bongo, Calongo, Mayombe, Mani-
kesocke, Motimbas : of the Ape Monster Pongo,

1 "Except this that their legges had no calves."— [Ed. 1626.]
A.nd in a marginal note, " These great apes are called Pongo's."

I THE PONGO 5

their hunting : Idolatries ; and divers other
observations."

"This province (Calongo) toward the east bordereth upon
Bongo, and toward the north upon Mayombe, which is nineteen
leagues from Longo along the coast.

* • This province of Mayombe is all woods and groves, so over-
growne that a man may travaile twentie days in the shadow
without any sunne or heat. Here is no kind of corne nor
graine, so that the people liveth onely upon plantanes and
roots of sundrie sorta, very good ; and nuts ; nor any kinde of
tame cattell, nor hens.

"But they have great store of elephants' flesh, which they
greatly esteeme, and many kinds of wild beasts ; and great
store of fish. Here is a great sandy bay, two leagues to the
northward of Cape Negro,1 which is the port of Mayombe.
Sometimes the Portugals lade logwood in this bay. Here is
a great river, called Banna : in the winter it hath no barre,
because the generall winds cause a great sea. But when tho
sunne hath his south declination, then a boat may goe in ; for
then it is smooth because of the raine. This river is very great,
and hath many ilands and people dwelling in them. The
woods are so covered with baboones, monkies, apes and parrots,
that it will feare any man to travaile in them alone. Here are
also two kinds of monsters, which are common in these woods,
and very dangerous.

" The greatest of these two monsters is called Pongo in their
language, and the lesser is called Engeco. This Pongo is in
all proportion like a man ; but that he is more like a giant
in stature than a man ; for he is very tall, and hath a man's
face, hollow-eyed, with long haire upon his browes. His
face and eares are without haire, and his hands also. Hia
bodie is full of haire, but not very thicke ; and it is of a dunnish
colour.

* * He differeth not from a man but in his legs ; for they have

1 Purchas' note. — Cape Negro is in 16 degrees south of the
lino.

6 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

no calfe. Hee goeth alwaies upon his legs, and carrieth his
hands clasped in the nape of his necke when he goeth upon the
ground. They sleepe in the trees, and huild shelters for the
raine. They feed upon fruit that they find in the woods, and
upon nuts, for they eate no kind of flesh. They cannot speake,
and have no understanding more than a beast. The people of
the countrie, when they travaile in the woods make fires where
they sleepe in the night ; and in the morning when they are
gone, the Pongoes will come and sit about the fire till it goeth
out ; for they have no understanding to lay the wood together.
They goe many together and kill many negroes that travaile in
the woods. Many times they fall upon the elephants which
come to feed where they be, and so beate them with their
clubbed fists, and pieces of wood, that they will runne roaring
away from them. Those Pongoes are never taken alive
because they are so strong, that ten men cannot hold one of
them ; but yet they take many of their young ones with
poisoned arrowes.

" The young Pongo hangeth on his mother's belly with his
hands fast clasped about her, so that when the countrie people
kill any of the females they take the young one, which hangeth
fast upon his mother.

"When they die among themselves, they cover the dead with
great heaps of boughs and wood, which is commonly found in
the forest."1

It does not appear difficult to identify the
exact region of which Battell speaks. Longo is

1 PurcTias' marginal note, p. 982 : — "The Pongo a giant ape.
He told me in conference with him, that one of these Pongoes
tooke a negro boy of his which lived a moneth with them. For
they hurt not those which they surprise at unawares, except
they look on them ; which he avoyded. He said their highth
was like a man's, but their bignesse twice as great. I saw the
negro boy. "What the other monster should be he hath for-
gotten to relate ; and these papers came to my hand since his
death, which, otherwise, in my often conferences, I mi^ht
have learned. Perhaps he meaneth the Pigmy Pongo killers
mentioned."

I THE PONGO 7

doubtless the name of the place usually spelled
Loango on our maps. Mayombe still lies some
nineteen leagues northward from Loango, along
the coast ; and Cilongo or Kilonga, Manikesocke,
and Motimbas are yet registered by geographers.
The Cape Negro of Battell, however, cannot be
the modern Cape Negro in 16° S., since Loango
itself is in 4° S. latitude. On the other hand, the
" great river called Banna " corresponds very well
with the " Gamma " and " Fernand Vas," of
modern geographers, which form a great delta on
this part of the African coast.

Now this " Gamma " country is situated about
a degree and a-half south of the Equator, while a
few miles to the north of the line lies the Gaboon,
and a degree or so north of that, the Money River
— both well known to modern naturalists as
localities where the largest of man-like Apes has
been obtained. Moreover, at the present day, the
word Engeco, or N'schego, is applied by the
natives of these regions to the smaller of the two
great Apes which inhabit them ; so that there can
be no rational doubt that Andrew Battell spoke
of that which he knew of his own knowledge, or,
at any rate, by immediate report from the natives
of Western Africa. The "Engeco," however, is
that " other monster " whose nature Battell
"forgot to relate," while the name "Pongo" —
applied to the animal whose characters and habits
are so fully and carefully described — seems to

8 THE MAN-LIKE APES ., \

have died out, at least in its primitive form and
signification. Indeed, there is evidence that not
only in BattelTs time, but up to a very recent
date, it was used in a totally different sense from
that in which he employs it.

For example, the second chapter of Purchas'
work, which I have just quoted, contains " A
Description and Historicall Declaration of the
Golden Kingdom of Guinea, &c. &c. Translated
from the Dutch, and compared also with the
Latin," wherein it is stated (p. 986) that —

"The River Gaboon lyeth about fifteen miles northward
from Rio de Angra, and eight miles northward from Cape
de Lope Gonsalvez (Cape Lopez), and is right under the
Equinoctial line, about fifteene miles from St. Thomas, and
is a great land, well and easily to be knowne. At the mouth
of the river there lieth a sand, three or foure fathoms deepe,
whereon it beateth mightily with the streame which runneth
out of the river into the sea. This river, in the mouth thereof,
is at least four miles broad ; but when you are about the
Hand called Pongo, it is not above two miles broad. . . .

On both sides the river there standeth many trees

The Hand called Pongo, which hath a monstrous high hill."

The French naval officers, whose letters are
appended to the late M. Isidore Geoff. Saint
Hilaire's excellent essay on the Gorilla,1 note in
similar terms the width of the Gaboon, the trees
that line its banks down to the water's edge, and
the strong current that sets out of it. They
describe two islands in . its estuary; — one ]ow,

1 Archives du Museum t Tome X.

I THE PONGO 9

called Perroquet ; the other high, presenting three
conical hills, called Coniquet ; and one of them,
M. Franquet, expressly states that, formerly, the
Chief of Coniquet was called Meni-Pongo, meaning
thereby Lord of Pongo ; and that the N'Pongues
(as, in agreement with Dr. Savage, he affirms the
natives call themselves) term the estuary of the
Gaboon itself N' Pongo.

It is so easy, in dealing with savages, to mis-
understand their applications of words to things,
that one is at first inclined to suspect Battell of
having confounded the name of this region, where
his "greater monster" still abounds, with the
name of the animal itself. But he is so right
about other matters (including the name of the
" lesser monster ") that one is loth to suspect the
old traveller of error ; and, on the other hand, we
shall find that a voyager of a hundred years' later
date speaks of the name " Boggoe," as applied to
a great Ape, by the inhabitants of quite another
part of Africa — Sierra Leone.

But I must leave this question to be settled by
philologers and travellers ; and I should hardly
have dwelt so long upon it except for the curious
part played by this word 'Pongo' in the later
history of the man-like Apes.

The generation which succeeded Battell saw
the first of the man-like Apes which was ever
brought to Europe, or, at any rate, whose visit
found a historian. In the third book of Tulpius'

10 THE MAN-LIKE APES 1

" Observationes Medico," published in 1641, the
56th chapter or section is devoted to what he
calls Satyrus indicus, "called by the Indians
Orang-autang or Man-of-the- Woods, and by the
Africans Quoias Morrou." He gives a very good

Jfomo Sylveftris.
Orang Outang.

FIG. 2.— The Orang of Tulpius, 1641.

figure, evidently from the life, of the specimen of
this animal, " nostra memoria ex Arigol& delatum,"
presented to Frederick Henry Prince of Orange.
Tulpius says it was as big as a child of three years
old, and as stout as one of six years : and that its

I TYSON'S PYGMIE 11

back was covered with black hair. It is plainly a
young Chimpanzee.

In the meanwhile, the existence of other,
Asiatic, man-like Apes became known, but at
first in a very mythical fashion. Thus Bontius
(1658) gives an altogether fabulous and ridiculous
account and figure of an animal which he calls
" Orang-outang " ; and though he says " vidi Ego
cujus effigiem hie exhibeo," the said effigies (see
Fig. 6 for Hoppius' copy of it) is nothing but a
very hairy woman of rather comely aspect, and
with proportions and feet wholly human. The
judicious English anatomist, Tyson, was justified
in saying of this description by Bontius, " I confess
I do mistrust the whole representation."

It is to the last-mentioned writer, and
his coadjutor Cowper, that we owe the first
account of a man- like ape which has any pre-
tensions to scientific accuracy and completeness.
The treatise entitled, " Orang-outang, sive Homo
Sylvestris; or the Anatomy of a Pygmie compared
with that of a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man'1
published by the Royal Society in 1699, is,
indeed, a work of remarkable merit, and has, in
some respects, served as a model to subsequent
inquirers. This " Pygmie," Tyson tells us " was
brought from Angola, in Africa; but was first
taken a great deal higher up the country " ; its
hair " was of a coal-black colour and strait," and
" when it went as a quadruped on all four, 'twas

12 THE MAN-LIKE APES i

awkwardly ; not placing the palm of the hand flat
to the ground, but it walk'd upon its knuckles,
as I observed it to do when weak and had not
etrength enough to support its body," — " From

FIG. 3. — The "Pygmie" reduced from Tyson's figure 1, 1699.

the top of the head to the heel of the foot, in a
strait line, it measured twenty-six inches.'1

These characters, even without Tyson's good
figure (Figs. 3 and 4), would have been sufficient

TYSON'S PYGMIE

13

to prove his " Pygmie " to be a young Chimpanzee.
But the opportunity of examining the skeleton of
the very animal Tyson anatomised having most
unexpectedly presented itself to me, I am able to

Fio. 4. — The "Pygmie" reduced from Tyson's figure 2, 1699.

bear independent testimony to its being a verit-
able Troglodytes niger,1 though still very young.

1 I am indebted to Dr. Wright, of. Cheltenham, whoso
]»aleontological labours are so well known, ^or bringing this

14 THE MAN-LIKE APES 1

Although fully appreciating the resemblances be-
tween his Pygmie and Man, Tyson by no means
overlooked the differences between the two, and
he concludes his memoir by summing up first, the
points in which " the Ourang-outang or Pygmie
more resembled a Man than Apes and Monkeys
do," under forty-seven distinct heads ; and then
giving, in thirty-four similar brief paragraphs, the
respects in which " the Ourang-outang or Pygmie
differ'd from a man and resembled more the Ape
and Monkey kind."

After a careful survey of the literature of the
subject extant in his time, our author arrives at
the conclusion that his " Pygmie " is identical
neither with the Orangs of Tulpius and Bontius,
nor with the Quoias Morrou of Dapper (or rather
of Tulpius), the Barris of d'Arcos, nor with the
Pongo of Battell ; but that it is a species of ape
probably identical with the Pygmies of the
Ancients, and, says Tyson, though it " does so
much resemble a Man in many of its parts, more
than any of the ape kind, or any other animal in
the world, that I know of : yet by no means do I
look upon it as the product of a mixt generation —

interesting relic to my knowledge. Tyson's granddaughter, it
appears, married Dr. Allardyce, a physician of repute in
Cheltenham, and brought, as part of her dowry, the skeleton of
the " Pygmie." Dr. Allardyce presented it to the Cheltenham
Museum, and, through the good offices of my friend Dr.
Wright, the authoiities of the Museum have permitted me to
borrow, what is, perhaps, its most remarkable ornament.

I THE MANDRILL 16

'tis a Brute- Animal sui generis, and a particular
species of Ape"

The name of " Chimpanzee/' by which one of
the African Apes is now so well known, appears
to have come into use in the first half of the
eighteenth century, but the only important addi-
tion made, in that period, to our acquaintance with
the man-like apes of Africa is contained in " A
New Voyage to Guinea," by William Smith,
which bears the date 1744.

In describing the animals of Sierra Leone,
p. 51, this writer says : —

" I shall next describe a strange sort of animal, called by the
white men in this country Mandrill,1 but why it is so called I
know not, nor did I ever hear the name before, neither can
those who call them so tell, except it be for their near resem-
blance of a human creature, though nothing at all like an Ape.
Their bodies, when full grown, are as big in circumference as a
middle-sized man's — their legs much shorter, and their feet
larger ; their arms and hands in proportion. The head is
monstrously big, and the 'face broad and flat, without any other
hair but the eyebrows ; the nose very small, the mouth wide,

1 " Mandrill " seems to signify a "man-like ape," the word
" Drill " or " Dril " having been anciently employed in England
to denote an Ape or Baboon. Thus in the fifth edition of Blount's
' ' Glosaographid, or a Dictionary interpreting the hard words of
whatsoever language now used in our refined English tongue
. . . very useful for all such as desire to understand what they
read," published in 1681, I find, " Dril— a stonecutter's tool
wherewith he bores little holes in marble, &c. Also a large
overgrown Ape and Baboon, so called." " Drill" is used in the
same sense in Charleton's Onomasticon Zoicon, 1668. The
singular etymology of the word given by Buffon seems hardly a
probable ono.

16

THE MAN-LIKE APES

and the lips thin. The face, which is covered by a white skin,
is monstrously ugly, being all over wrinkled as with old age ;
the teeth broad and yellow ; the hands have no more hair than
the face, but the same white skin, though all the rest of the
body is covered with long black hair, like a bear. They never
go upon all-fours, like apes ; but cry, when vexed or teased, just
like children

FIG. 5.— Facsimile of William Smith's figure of the " Mandrill,"
1744.

'When I was at Sherbro, one Mr. Cummerbus, whom I
shall have occasion hereafter to mention, made me a present of
one of these strange animals, which are called by the natives
Boggoe : it was a she-cub, of six months' age, but even then
larger than a Baboon. I gave it in charge to one of the slaves,
who knew how to feed and nurse it, being a very tender sort <r>f
animal ; but whenever I went off the deck the sailors began to
teaze it — some loved to see its tears and hear it cry; others

I LINN^US ANTHROPOMORPHA 17

hated its snotty nose ; one who hurt it, being checked by the
negro that took care of it, told the slave he was very fond of
his country-woman, and asked him if he should not like her for
a wife ? To which the slave very readily replied, * No, this no
my wife ; this a white woman — this fit wife for you.' This
unlucky wit of the negro's, I fancy, hastened its death, for next
morning it was found dead under the windlass."

William Smith's " Mandrill," or " Boggoe," as his
description and figure testify, was, without doubt,
a Chimpanzee.

Linnaeus knew nothing, of his own observation,
of the man -like Apes of either Africa or Asia, but
a dissertation by his pupil Hoppius in the
"Amcenitates Academics" (VI. " Anthropomor-
pha ") may be regarded as embodying his views
respecting these animals.

The .dissertation is illustrated by a plate, of
which the accompanying woodcut, Fig. 6, is a
reduced copy. The figures are entitled (from
left to right 1. Troglodyta Bontii ; 2. Lucifer
Aldrovandi; 3. Satyrus Tidpii ; 4. Pygmceus
Edwardi. The first is a bad copy of Bontius'
fictitious " Ourang-outang," in whose existence,
however, Linnaeus appears to have fully believed ;
for in the standard edition of the " Systema
Naturae," it is enumerated a-s a second species of
Homo; "H. nocturnus." Lucifer Aldrovandi is
a copy of a figure in Aldrovandus, " De Quadru-
pedibus digitatis viviparis," Lib. 2, p. 249 (1645)
entitled " Cercopithecus formae raraB Barlilim
vocatus et originem a china ducebat." Hoppius

166

18

THE MAN-LIKE APES

is of opinion that this may be one of that cat-tailed
people, of whom Nicolaus Koping affirms that
they eat a boat's crew, " gubernator navis " and
all ! In the " Systema Naturae " Linnaeus calls it
in a note, Homo caudatus, and seems inclined to
regard it as a third species of man. According to
Temminck, Satyrus Tulpii is a copy of the figure

FIG. 6. — The Anthropomorpha of Linnseus.

of a Chimpanzee published by Scotin in 1738,
which I have not seen. It is the Satyrus indicus
of the "Systema Natures," and is regarded by
Linnseus as possibly a distinct species from Satyrus
sylvestris. The last, named Pygmceus Udwardi, is
copied from the figure of a young " Man of the
Woods," or true Orang-Utan, given in Edwards'
"Gleanings of Natural History" (1758).

I BUFFON'S JOCKO 19

Buffon was more fortunate than his great rival.
Not only had he the rare opportunity of ex-
amining a young Chimpanzee in the living state,
but he became possessed of an adult Asiatic man-
like Ape — the first and the last adult specimen
of any of these animals brought to Europe for
many years. With the valuable assistance of
Daubenton, Buffon gave an excellent description
of this creature, which, from its singular pro-
portions, he termed the long- armed Ape, or
Gibbon. It is the modern Hylobates lar.

Thus when, in 1766, Buffon wrote the four-
teenth volume of his great work, he was personally
familiar with the young of one kind of African
man-like Ape, and with the adult of an Asiatic
species — while the Orang-Utan and the Mandrill
of Smith were known to him by report. Further-
more, the Abbe Prevost had translated a good
deal of Purchas' "Pilgrims" into French, in his
" Histoire generale des Voyages " (1748), and there
Buffon found a version of Andrew BattelFs
account of the Pongo and the Engeco. All these
data Buffon attempts to weld together into
harmony in this chapter entitled "Les Orang-
outangs ou le Pongo et le Jocko." To this title
the following note is appended : —

"Orang-outang nom de cet animal aux Indes orientales:
Pongo nom de cet animal a Lowando Province de Congo.

" Jocko, Enjocko, nom de cet animal a Congo que nous avons
adopte. En est 1'article que nous avons retranche."

20 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

Thus it was that Andrew Battell's "Engeco"
became metamorphosed into " Jocko," and, in the
latter shape, was spread all over the world, in
consequence of the extensive popularity of
Buffon's works. The Abbe Prevost and Buffon
between them however, did a good deal more
disfigurement to BattelFs sober account than
" cutting off an article." Thus Battell's statement
that the Pongos "cannot speake, and have no
understanding more than a beast," is rendered by
Buffon "qu'il ne peut parler quoiguil ait plus
d'entendement que les autres animaiix ;" and again,
Purchas' affirmation, " He told me in conference
with him, that one of these Pongos tooke a negro
boy of his which lived a moneth with them,"
stands in the French version, " un pongo lui en-
leva un petit negre qui passa un an entier dans
la societe de ces anirnaux."

After quoting the account of the great Pongo,
Buffon justly remarks, that all the " Jockos " and
" Orangs " hitherto brought to Europe were young ;
and he suggests that, in their adult condition,
they might be as big as the Pongo or "great
Orang;" so that, provisionally, he regarded the
Jockos, Orangs, and Pongos as all of one species.
And perhaps this was as much as the state of
knowledge at the time warranted. But how it
came about that Buffon failed to perceive the
similarity of Smith's "Mandrill" to his own
" Jocko," and confounded the former with so

i BUFFON'S JOCKO 21

totally different a creature as the blue-faced
Baboon, is not so easily intelligible.

Twenty years later Buffon changed his opinion,1
and expressed his belief that the Orangs con-
stituted a genus with two species, — a large one,
the Pongo of Battell, and a small one, the Jocko :
that .the small one (Jocko) is the East Indian
Orang ; and that the young animals from Africa,
observed by himself and Tulpius, are simply
young Pongos.

In the meanwhile, the Dutch naturalist, Vos-
maer, gave, in 1778, a very good account and
figure of a young Orang, brought alive to Holland,
and his countryman, the famous anatomist, Peter
Camper, published (1779) an essay on the Orang-
Utan of similar value to that of Tyson on the
Chimpanzee. He dissected several females and a
male, all of which, from the state of their
skeleton and their dentition, he justly supposes
to have been young. However, judging by the
analogy of man, he concludes that they could not
have exceeded four feet in height in the adult
condition. Furthermore, he is very clear as to
the specific distinctness of the true East Indian
Orang.

" The Orang," says he, " differs not only from

the Pigmy of Tyson and from the Orang of

Tulpius by its peculiar colour and its long toes,

but also by its whole external form. Its arms, its

1 Histoire Naturelle, Suppl. Tome 7eme, 1789.

22 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

hands, and its feet are longer, while the thumbs,
on the contrary, are much shorter, and the great
toes much smaller in proportion." 1 And again,
"The true Orang, that is to say, that of Asia,
that of Borneo, is consequently not the Pithecus,
or tail-less Ape, which the Greeks, and especially
Galen, have described. It is neither the Pongo
nor the Jocko, nor the Orang of Tulpius, nor the
Pigmy of Tyson, — it is an animal of a peculiar
species, as I shall prove in the clearest manner by
the organs of voice and the skeleton in the
following chapters" (/. c. p. 64).

A few years later, M. Radermacher, who held
a high office in the Government of the Dutch
dominions in India, and was an active member
of the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences,
published, in the second part of the Transac-
tions of that Society,2 a Description of the Island
of Borneo, which was written between the years
1779 and 1781, and, among much other interesting
matter, contains some notes upon the Orang.
The small sort of Orang-Utan, viz. that of
Vosmaer and of Edwards, he says, is found only
in Borneo, and chiefly about Banjermassing,
Mampauwa, and Landak. Of these lie had seen
some fifty during his residence in the Indies ; but
none exceeded 2^ feet in length. The larger sort,

1 Camper, CEuvres, i., p. 56.

2 Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap. Tweede
Deel. Derde Druk. 1826.

I THE ORANG-OUTANG 23

often regarded as a chimsera, continues Rader-
macher, would perhaps long have remained so,
had it not been for the exertions of the Resident
at Rembang, M. Palm, who, on returning from
Landak towards Pontiana, shot one, and forwarded
it to Batavia in spirit, for transmission to Europe.
Palm's letter describing the capture runs
thus : — " Herewith I send your Excellency, con-
trary to all expectation (since long ago I offered
more than a hundred ducats to the natives for an
Orang-Utan of four or five feet high) an Orang
which I heard of this morning about eight o'clock.
For a long time we did our best to take the
frightful beast alive in the dense forest about
half way to Landak. We forgot even to eat, so
anxious were we not to let him escape ; but it
was necessary to take care that he did not
revenge himself, as he kept continually breaking
off heavy pieces of wood and green branches, and
dashing them at us. This game lasted till four
o'clock in the afternoon, when we determined to
shoot him ; in which I succeeded very well, and
indeed better than I ever shot from a boat
before ; for the bullet went just into the side of
his chest, so that he was not much damaged. We
got him into the prow still living, and bound him
fast, and next morning he died of his wounds.
All Pontiana came on board to see him when we
arrived." Palm gives his height from the head
to the heel as 49 inches.

24 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

A very intelligent German officer, Baron Von
Wurmb, who at this time held a post in the
Dutch East India service, and was Secretary of
the Batavian Society, studied this animal, and his
careful description of it, entitled " Beschrijving
van der Groote Borneosche Orang-outang of de
Oost-Indische Pongo," is contained in the same
volume of the Batavian Society's Transactions.
After Von Wurmb had drawn up his description
he states, in a letter dated Batavia, Feb. 18, 178 1,1
that the specimen was sent to Europe in brandy
to be placed in the collection of the Prince of
Orange ; " unfortunately/' he continues, " we
hear that the ship has been wrecked." Von
Wurmb died in the course of the year 1781, the
letter in which this passage occurs being the last
he wrote : but in his posthumous papers, published
in the fourth part of the Transactions of the
Batavian Society, there is a brief description,
with measurements, of a female Pongo four feet
high.

Did either of these original specimens, on
which Von Wurmb's descriptions are based,
ever reach Europe ? It is commonly supposed
that they did ; but I doubt the fact. For,
appended to the memoir "De TOurang-outang,"
in the collected edition of Camper's works, tome
L, pp. 64-66, is a note by Camper himself,

1 "Briefe des Herrn v. Wurmb und des H. Baron von
Wollzogen. Gotha, 1794."

THE ORANG-OUTANG

25

referring to Von Wurmb's papers, and continuing
thus : — " Heretofore, this kind of ape had never
been known in Europe. Radermacher has had
the kindness to send me the skull of one of
these animals, which measured fifty- three inches,
or four feet five inches, in height. I have
sent some sketches of it to M. Soemmering at

FIG. 7. — The Pongo Skull, sent by Radermacher to Camper,
after Camper's original sketches, as reproduced by Lucae.

Mayence, which are better calculated, however,
to give an idea of the form than of the real size
of the parts."

These sketches have been reproduced by
Fischer and by Lucaa, and bear date 1783,
Soemmering having received them in 1784.
Had either of Von Wurmb's specimens reaches^

26 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

Holland, they would hardly have been unknown
at this time to Camper, who, however, goes on to
say : — " It appears that since this, some more of
these monsters have been captured, for an entire
skeleton, very badly set up, which had been sent
to the Museum of the Prince of Orange, and
which I saw only on the 27th of June, 1784,
was more than four feet high. I examined this
skeleton again on the 19th December, 1785,
after it had been excellently put to rights by the
ingenious Onymus."

It appears evident, then, that this skeleton,
which is doubtless that which has always gone by
the name of Wurmb's Pongo, is not that of the
animal described by him, though unquestionably
similar in all essential points.

Camper proceeds to note some of the most
important features of this skeleton ; promises to
describe it in detail by-and-bye ; and is evidently
in doubt as to the relation of this great " Pongo "
to his " petit Orang."

The promised further investigations were never
carried out ; and so it happened that the Pongo
of Von Wurmb took its place by the side of the
Chimpanzee, Gibbon, and Orang as a fourth and
colossal species of man-like Ape. And indeed
nothing could look much less like the Chim-
panzees or the Orangs, then known, than the
Pongo ; for all the specimens of Chimpanzee and
Orang which had been observed were small of

I THE ORANG-OUTANG 27

stature, singularly human in aspect, gentle and
docile ; while Wurmb's Pongo was a monster
almost twice their size, of vast strength and
fierceness, and very brutal in expression ; its great
projecting muzzle, armed with strong teeth, being
further disfigured by the outgrowth of the cheeks
into fleshy lobes.

Eventually, in accordance with the usual
marauding habits of the Revolutionary armies,
the " Pongo " skeleton was carried away from
Holland into France, and notices of it, expressly
intended to demonstrate its entire distinctness from
the Orang and its affinity with the baboons, were
given, in 1798, by Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Cuvier.

Even in Cuvier's " Tableau ]£lementaire," and
in the first edition of his great work, the " Regne
Animal," the " Pongo " is classed as a species of
Baboon. However, so early as 1818, it appears
that Cuvier saw reason to alter this opinion, and
to adopt the view suggested several years before
by Blumenbach,1 and after him by Tilesius, that
the Bornean Pongo is simply an adult Orang. In
1824, Rudolphi demonstrated, by the condition
of the dentition, more fully and completely than
had been done by his predecessors, that the
Orangs described up to that time were all young
animals, and that the skull and teeth of the adult

1 See Blumenbach Abbildungen NaturTiistorichen Gegenstande,
No. 12, 1810 ; and Tilesius, Naturhistoriclie Fruchte der ersten
Kaiser lich-liussischcn Erdumscg clung, p. 115, 1813.

28 THE MAN-LIKE APES 1

would probably be such as those seen in the
Pongo of Wurmb. In the second edition of the
"Regne Animal" (1829), Guvier infers, from the
" proportions of all the parts " and " the arrange-
ments of the foramina and sutures of the head/'
that the Pongo is the adult of the Orang-Utan,
" at least of a very closely allied species/' and
this conclusion was eventually placed beyond all
doubt by Professor Owen's Memoir published in
the "Zoological Transactions" for 1835, and by
Temminck in his " Monographies cle Mammalogie."
Temminck's memoir is remarkable for the com-
pleteness of the evidence which it affords as to
the modification which the form of the Orang
undergoes according to age and sex. Tiedemann
first published an account of the brain of the
young Orang, while Sandifort, Miiller and
Schlegel, described the muscles and the viscera
of the adult, and gave the earliest detailed and
trustworthy history of the habits of the great
Indian Ape in a state of nature ; and as
important additions have been made by later
observers, we are at this moment better ac-
quainted with the adult of the Orang-Utan,
than with that of any of the other greater
man-like Apes.

It is certainly the Pongo of Wurmb ; l and it is
as certainly not the Pongo of Battell, seeing that

1 Speaking broadly and without prejudice to the question,
whether there be more than one species of Orang

I THE CHIMPANZEE 29

the Orang-TJtan is entirely confined to the great
Asiatic islands of Borneo and Sumatra.

And while the progress of discovery thus cleared
up the history of the Orang, it also became
established that the only other man-like Apes in
the eastern world were the various species of
Gibbon — Apes of smaller stature, and therefore
attracting less attention than the Orangs, though
they are spread over a much wider range of country,
and are hence more accessible to observation.

Although the geographical area inhabited by
the " Pongo " and " Engeco " of Battell is so much
nearer to Europe than that in which the Orang
and Gibbon are found, our acquaintance with the
African Apes has been of slower growth ; indeed,
it is only within the last few years that the truth-
ful story of the old English adventurer has been
rendered fully intelligible. It was not until 1835
that the skeleton of the adult Chimpanzee became
known, by the publication of Professor Owen's
above-mentioned very excellent memoir " On the
Osteology of the Chimpanzee and Orang," in the
Zoological Transactions — a memoir which, by the
accuracy of its descriptions, the carefulness of its
comparisons, and the excellence of its figures,
made an epoch in the history of our knowledge of
the bony framework, not only of the Chimpanzee,
but of all the anthropoid Apes.

By the investigations herein detailed, it became

30 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

evident that the old Chimpanzee acquired a size
and aspect as different from those of the young
known to Tyson, to BufTon, and to Traill, as those
of the old Orang from the young Orang ; and the
subsequent very important researches of Messrs.
Savage and Wyman, the American missionary
and anatomist, have not only confirmed this con-
clusion, but have added many new details.1

One of the most interesting among the many
valuable discoveries made by Dr. Thomas Savage
is the fact, that the natives in the Gaboon country
at the present day, apply to the Chimpanzee a
name^-" Enche-eko " — which is" obviously identi-
cal with the "Engeko " of Battell ; a discovery
which has been confirmed by all later inquirers.
Battell's " lesser monster " being thus proved to
be a veritable existence, of course a strong pre-
sumption arose that his "greater monster," the
" Pongo," would sooner or later be discovered.
And, indeed, a modern traveller, Bowdich, had, in
1819, found strong evidence, among the natives,
of the existence of a second great Ape, called the
" Ingena," " five feet high, and four across the
shoulders/' the builder of a rude house, on the
outside of which it slept.

1 See " Observations on the external characters and habits of
the Troglodytes niger, by Thomas N. Savage, M.D., and on its
organization, by Jeffries Wyman, M.D.," Boston Journal of
Natural History, vol. iv. 1843-4 ; and " External characters,
habits, and osteology of Troglodytes Gorilla," by the same
authors; ibid, vol. v. 1847.

I THE GORILLA 31

In 1847, Dr. Savage had the good fortune to make
another and most important addition to our know-
ledge of the man -like Apes; for, being unexpectedly
detained at the Gaboon river, he saw in the house
of the Rev. Mr. Wilson, a missionary resident
there, " a skull represented by the natives to be a
monkey-like animal, remarkable for its size,
ferocity, and habits." From the contour of the
skull, and the information derived from several
intelligent natives, " I was induced," says Dr.
Savage (using the term Orang in its old general
sense) "to believe that it belonged to a new
species of Orang. I expressed this opinion to Mr.
Wilson, with a desire for further investigation ;
and, if possible, to decide the point by the inspec-
tion of a specimen alive or dead." The result of
the combined exertions of Messrs. Savage and
Wilson was not only the obtaining of a very full
account of the habits of this new creature, but a
still more important service to science, the enabling
the excellent American anatomist already men-
tioned, Professor Wyman, to describe, from ample
materials, the distinctive osteological characters
of the new form. This animal was called by the
natives of the Gaboon " Enge-ena," a name obvi-
ously identical with the " Ingena " of Bowdich ;
and Dr. Savage arrived at the conviction that this
last discovered of all the great Apes was the long-
sought " Pongo " of Battell.

The justice of this conclusion, indeed, is beyond

32 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

doubt — for not only does the " Enge*-ena " agree
with BatteH's " greater monster " in its hollow
eyes, its great stature, and its dun or iron-grey
colour, but the only other man-like Ape which in-
habits these latitudes — the Chimpanzee — is at
once identified, by its smaller size, as the " lesser
monster," and is excluded from any possibility of
being the " Pongo," by the fact that it is black and
not dun, to say nothing of the important circum-
stance already mentioned that it still retains the
name of " Engeko," or "Enche-eko," by which
Battell knew it.

In seeking for a specific name for the " Enge-
ena," however, Dr. Savage wisely avoided the
much misused " Pongo " ; but finding in the
ancient Periplus of Hanno the word " Gorilla "
applied to certain hairy savage people, discovered
by the Carthaginian voyager in an island on the
African coast, he attached the specific name
" Gorilla " to his new ape, whence arises its
present well-known appellation. But Dr. Savage,
more cautious than some of his successors, by no
means identifies his ape with Hamio's " wild men."
He merely says that the latter were "probably
one of the species of the Orang;" and I quite
agree with M. Brulle, that there is no ground
for identifying the modern "Gorilla" with that
of the Carthaginian admiral.

Since the memoir of Savage and Wyman was
published, the skeleton of the Gorilla has been

I THE GIBBONS 33

investigated by Professor Owen and by the late
Professor Duvernoy, of the Jardin des Plantes,
the latter having further supplied a valuable ac-
count of the muscular system and of many of the
other soft parts ; while African missionaries and
travellers have confirmed and expanded the ac-
count originally given of the habits of this great
man-like Ape, which has had the singular fortune
of being the first to be made known to the
general world and the last to be scientifically
investigated.

Two centuries and a half have passed away
since Battell told his stories about the " greater "
and the " lesser monsters " to Purchas, and it has
taken nearly that time to arrive at the clear
result that there are four distinct kinds of
Anthropoids — in Eastern Asia, the Gibbons and
the Orangs ; in Western Africa, the Chimpanzees
and the Gorilla.

The man-like Apes, the history of the discovery
of which has just been detailed, have certain charac-
ters of structure and of distribution in common.
Thus they all have the same number of teeth as
man — possessing four incisors, two canines, four
false molars, and six true molars in each jaw, or
32 teeth in all, in the adult condition ; while the
milk dentition consists of 20 teeth — or four incisors,
two canines, and four molars in each jaw. They
are what are called catarrhine Apes —that is, their
167

34 THE MAN-LIKE APES 1

nostrils have a narrow partition and look down-
wards; and, furthermore, their arms are always
longer than their legs, the difference being some-
times greater and sometimes less ; so that if the
four were arranged in the order of the length of
their arms in proportion to that of their legs, we
should have this series — Orang (1-f- — 1), Gibbon
(11— 1), Gorilla' (li— 1), Chimpanzee (lrV— 1).
In all, the fore limbs are terminated by hands,
provided with longer or shorter thumbs ; while
the great toe of the foot, always smaller than in
Man, is far more movable than in him and can be
opposed, like a thumb, to the rest of the foot.
None of these apes have tails, and none of them
possess the cheek-pouches common among mon-
keys. Finally, they are all inhabitants of the old
world.

The Gibbons are the smallest, slenderest, and
longest-limbed of the man-like apes : their arms
are longer in proportion to their bodies than those
of any of the other man-like Apes, so that they
can touch the ground when erect; their hands
are longer than their feet, and they are the only
Anthropoids which possess callosities like the lower
monkeys. They are variously coloured. The
Orangs have arms which reach to the ankles in
the erect position of the animal ; their thumbs
and great toes are very short, and their feet are
longer than their hands. They are covered with
reddish brown hair, and the sides of the face, in

I THE GIBBONS 35

adult males, are commonly produced into two
crescentic, flexible excrescences, like fatty tu-
mours. The Chimpanzees have arms which
reach below the knees ; they have large thumbs
and great toes ; their hands are longer than their
fec't ; and their hair is black, while the skin of the
face is pale. The Gorilla, lastly, has arms which
reach to the middle of the leg, large thumbs and
great toes, feet longer than the hands, a black
face, and dark-grey or dun hair.

For the purpose which I have at present in
view, it is unnecessary that I should enter into
any further minutiae respecting the distinctive
characters of the genera and species into which
these man-like Apes are divided by naturalists.
Suffice it to say, that the Orangs and the Gibbons
constitute the distinct genera, Simia and Hi/locates ;
while the Chimpanzees and Gorillas are by some
regarded simply as distinct species of one genus,
Troglodytes ; by others as distinct genera — Trog-
lodytes being reserved for the Chimpanzees, and
Gorilla for the Enge*-ena or Pongo.

Sound knowledge respecting the habits and
mode of life of the man-like Apes has been even
more difficult of attainment than correct informa-
tion regarding their structure.

Once in a generation, a Wallace may be found
physically, mentally, and morally qualified to
wander unscathed through the tropical wilds of

36 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

America and of Asia ; to form magnificent collec-
tions as he wanders ; and withal to think out
sagaciously the conclusions suggested by his col-
lections : but, to the ordinary explorer or collector,
the dense forests of equatorial Asia and Africa,'
which constitute the favourite habitation of the
Orang, the Chimpanzee, and the Gorilla, present
difficulties of no ordinary magnitude ; and the
man who risks his life by even a short visit to the
malarious shores of those regions may well be
excused if he shrinks from facing the dangers of
the interior ; if he contents himself with stimu-
lating the industry of the better seasoned natives,
and collecting and collating the more or less
mythical reports and traditions with which they
are too ready to supply him.

In such a manner most of the earlier accounts
of the habits of the man-like Apes originated ;
and even now a good deal of what passes current
must be admitted to have no very safe foundation.
The best information we possess is that, based
almost wholly on direct European testimony, re-
specting the Gibbons ; the next best evidence
relates to the Orangs ; while our knowledge of
the habits of the Chimpanzee and the Gorilla
stands much in need of support and enlargement
by additional testimony from instructed Europr3an
eye-witnesses.

It will therefore be convenient in endeavouring
to form a notion of what we are justified in

I THE GIBBONS 37

believing about these animals, to commence with
the best known man-like Apes, the Gibbons and
Orangs ; and to make use of the perfectly trust-
worthy information respecting them as a sort o(
criterion of the probable truth or falsehood oi
assertions respecting the others.

Of the GIBBONS, half a dozen species are found
scattered over the Asiatic islands, Java, Sumatra,
Borneo, and through Malacca, Siam, Arracan,
and an uncertain extent of Hindostan, on the
main land of Asia. The largest attain a few
inches above three feet in height, from the
crown to the heel, so that they are shorter than
the other man-like Apes ; while the slenderness
of their bodies renders their mass far smaller in
proportion even to this diminished height.

Dr. Salomon Miiller, an accomplished Dutch
naturalist, who lived for many years in the East-
ern Archipelago, and to the results of whose per-
sonal experience I shall frequently have occasion
to refer, states that the Gibbons are true moun-
taineers, loving the slopes and edges of the hills,
though they rarely ascend beyond the limit of
the fig-trees. All day long they haunt the tops of
the tall trees ; and though, towards evening, they
descend in small troops to the open ground,
no sooner do they spy a man than they dart
up the hill-sides, and disappear in the d^ker
valleys.

All observers testify to the prodigious volume of

FIG. 8.— A Gibbon (H. pileatus\ after Wolf.

I THE GIBBONS 39

voice possessed by these animals. According to
the writer whom I have just cited, in one of them,
the Siamang, " the voice is grave and penetrating,
resembling the sounds g5ek, g5ek, goek, goek,
goek ha ha ha ha haaaaa, and may easily be heard
at a distance of half a league/' While the cry is
being uttered, the great membranous bag under
the throat which communicates with the organ of
voice, the so-called "laryngeal sac/' becomes greatly
distended, diminishing again when the creature
relapses into silence.

M. Duvaucel, likewise, affirms that the cry of the
Siamang may be heard for miles — making the
woods ring again. So Mr. Martin1 describes the
cry of the agile Gibbon as " overpowering and
deafening " in a room, and " from its strength, well
calculated for resounding through the vast forests/'
Mr. Waterhouse, an accomplished musician as well
as zoologist, says, " The Gibbon's voice is certainly
much more powerful than that of any singer I ever
heard." And yet it is to be recollected that this
animal is not half the height of, and far less bulky
in proportion than, a man.

There is good testimony that various species
of Gibbon readily take to the erect posture. Mr.
George Bennett,2 a very excellent observer, in de-
scribing the habits of a male Hylobates syndactylus
which remained for some time in his possession,

1 Man and Monlcies% p. 423.

2 Wanderings in New South Wales, vol. ii. chap. viii. 1834.

40 THE MAN-LIKE APES 1

says : " He invariably walks in the erect posture
when on a level surface ; and then the arms either
hang down, enabling him to assist himself with his
knuckles ; or what is more usual, he keeps his
arms uplifted in nearly an erect position, with the
hands pendent ready to seize a rope, and climb
up on the approach of danger or on the obtrusion
of strangers. He walks rather quick in the erect
posture, but with a waddling gait, and is soon run
down if, whilst pursued, he has no opportunity of
escaping by climbing .... When he walks in
the erect posture he turns the leg and foot out-
wards, which occasions him to have a waddling
gait and to seem bow-legged."

Dr. Burrough states of another Gibbon, the
Horlack or Hooluk :

' ' They walk erect ; and when placed on the floor, or in an
open field, balance themselves very prettily, by raising their
hands over their head and slightly bending the arm at the
wrist and elbow, and then run tolerably fast, rocking from
side to side ; and, if urged to greater speed, they let fall theii
hands to the ground, and assist themselves forward, rathei
jumping than running, still keeping the body, however,
nearly erect."

Somewhat different Qvidence, however, is given
by Dr. Winslow Lewis : x

" Their only manner of walking was on their
posterior or inferior extremities, the others being
raised upwards to preserve their equilibrium, as

1 Boston Journal of Natural History, vol. i. 1834.

I THE GIBBONS 41

rope-dancers are assisted by long poles at fairs.
Their progression was not by placing one foot before
the other, but by simultaneously using both, as in
jumping." Dr. Salomon Mliller also states that
the Gibbons progress along the ground by short
series of tottering jumps, effected only by the hind
limbs, the body being held altogether upright.

But Mr. Martin (1. c. p. 418), who also speaks
from direct observation, says of the Gibbons
generally :

"Pre-eminently qualified for arboreal habits, and display,
ing among the branches amazing activity, the Gibbons are
not so awkward or embarrassed on a level surface as 'might
be imagined. They walk erect, with a waddling or unsteady
gait, but at a quick pace ; the equilibrium of the body
requiring to be kept up, either by touching the ground with
the knuckles, first on one side then on the other, or by up-
lifting the arms so as to poise it. As with the Chimpanzee,
the whole of the narrow, long sole of the foot is placed upon
the ground at once and raised at once, without any elasticity
of step."

After this mass of concurrent and independent
testimony, it cannot reasonably be doubted that
the Gibbons commonly and habitually assume the
erect attitude.

But level ground is not the place where these
animals can display their very remarkable and
peculiar locomotive powers, and that prodigious
activity which almost tempts one to rank them
among flying, rather than among ordinary climbing
mammals.

42 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

Mr. Martin (I. c. p. 430) has given so excellent
and graphic an account of the movements of a
Hylobates agilis, living in the Zoological Gardens,
in 1840, that I will quote it in full :

"It is almost impossible to convey in words an idea of the
quickness and graceful address of her movements : they may
indeed be termed aerial, as she seems merely to touch in her
progress the branches among which she exhibits her evolu-
tions. In these feats her hands and arms are the sole organs
of locomotion ; her body hanging as if suspended by a rope,
sustained by one hand (the right for example), she launches
herself, by an energetic movement, to a distant branch,
which she catches with the left hand ; but her hold is less
than momentary : the impulse for the next launch is ac-
quired : the branch then aimed at is attained by the right
hand again and quitted instantaneously, and so on in
alternate succession. In this manner spaces of twelve and
eighteen feet are cleared, with the greatest ease and un-
interruptedly, for hours together, without the slightest
appearance of fatigue being manifested ; and it is evident
that if more space could be allowed, distances very greatly
exceeding eighteen feet would be as easily cleared ; so that
Duvaucel's assertion that he had seen these animals launch
themselves from one branch to another, forty feet asunder,
startling as it is, may be well credited. Sometimes, on
. seizing a branch in her progress, she will throw herself,
by the power of one arm only, completely round it, making
a revolution with such rapidity as almost to deceive the eye,
and continue her progress with undimiriished velocity. It is
singular to observe how suddenly this Gibbon can stop,
when the impetus given by the rapidity and distance of her
swinging leaps would seem to require a gradual abatement of
her movements. In the very midst of her flight a branch is
seized, the body raised, and she is seen, as if by magic,
quietly seated on it, grasping it with her feet. As suddenly
she again throws herself into action.

I THE GIBBONS 43

"The following facts will convey some notion of her
dexterity and quickness. A live bird was let loose in her
apartment ; she marked its flight, made a long swing to a
distant branch, caught the bird with one hand in her passage,
and attained the branch with her other hand ; her aim, both
at the bird and at the branch, being as successful as if one
object only had engaged her attention. It may be added that
she instantly bit off the head of the bird, picked its feathers,
and then threw it down without attempting to eat it.

" On another occasion this animal swung herself from a
perch, across a passage at least twelve feet wide, against a
"window which it was thought would be immediately broken :
but not so ; to the surprise of all, she caught the narrow
framework between the panes with her hand, in an instant
attained the proper impetus, and sprang back again to the
cage she had left — a feat requiring not only great strength,
but the nicest precision."

The Gibbons appear to be naturally very gentle,
but there is very good evidence that they will bite
severely when irritated — a female Hylolates agilis
having so severely lacerated one man with her
long canines, that he died ; while she had injured
others so much that, by way of precaution, these
formidable teeth had been filed down ; but, if
threatened, she would still turn on her keeper
The Gibbons eat insects, but appear generally to
avoid animal food. A Siamang, however, was seen
by Mr. Bennett to seize and devour greedily a live
lizard. They commonly drink by dipping their
fingers in the liquid and then licking them. It is
asserted that they sleep in a sitting posture.

Duvaucel affirms that he has seen the females
carry their young to the waterside and there wash

44 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

their faco3, in spite of resistance and cries. They
are gentle and affectionate in captivity — full of
tricks and pettishness, like spoiled children, and
yet not devoid of a certain conscience, as an
anecdote, told by Mr. Bennett (1. c. p. 156), will
show. It would appear that his Gibbon had a
peculiar inclination for disarranging things in the
cabin. Among these articles, a piece of soap
would especially attract his notice, and for the
removal of this he had been once or twice scolded.
" One morning," says Mr. Bennett, " I was writing,
the ape being present in the cabin, when casting
my eyes towards him, I saw the little fellow
taking the soap. I watched him without his
perceiving that I did so : and he occasionally
would cast a furtive glance towards the place
where I sat. I pretended to write ; he, seeing
me busily occupied, took the soap, and moved
away with it in his paw. When he had walked
half the length of the cabin, I spoke quietly,
without frightening him. The instant he found
I saw him, he walked back again, and deposited
the soap nearly in the same place from whence
lie had taken it. There was certainly something
more than instinct in that action : he evidently
betrayed a consciousness of having done wrong
both by his first and last actions — and what is
reason if that is not an exercise of it ? "

The most elaborate account of the natural

FIG. 9.— An adult male Orang-Utan, after Miiller and Schlegel.

46 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

history of the ORANG-UTAN extant, is that given
in the " Verhandelingen over de Natuurlijke
Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche overzeesche
Bezittingen (1839-45)," by Dr. Salomon Miiller
and Dr. Schlegel, and I shall base what I have to
say upon this subject almost entirely on their
statements, adding, here and there, particulars of
interest from the writings of Brooke, Wallace,
and others.

The Orang-Utan would rarely seem to exceed
four feet in height, but the body is very bulky,
measuring two-thirds of the height in circum-
ference.1

The Orang-Utan is found only in Sumatra and
Borneo, and is common in neither of these islands —
in both of which it occurs always in low, flat
plains, never in the mountains. It loves the
densest and most sombre of the forests, which

1 The largest Orang-Utan, cited by Temminck, measured,
when standing upright, four feet ; but he mentions having just
received news of the capture of an Orang five feet three inches
high. Schlegel and Miiller say that their largest old male
measured, upright, 1.25 Netherlands " el " ; and from the crown
to the end of the toes, 1.5 el; the circumference of the body
being about 1 el. The largest old female was 1.09 el high,
when standing. The adult skeleton in the College of Surgeons'
Museum, if set upright, would stand 3 ft. 6-8 in. from crown to
sole. Dr. Humphry gives 3 ft. 8 in. as the mean height of
two Orangs. Of seventeen Orangs examined by Mr. Wallace,
the largest was 4 ft. 2 in. high, from the heel to the crown of
the head. Mr. Spencer St. John, however, in his Life in the
Forests of the Far East, tells us of an Orang of "5 ft. 2 in.,
measuring fairly from the head to the heel," 15 in. across the
face, and 12 in. round the wrist. It does not appear, however,
Mr. that St. John measured this Orang himself.

I THE ORANG 47

extend from the sea-shore inland, and thus ia
found only in the eastern half of Sumatra, where
alone such forests occur, though, occasionally, it
strays over to the western side.

On the other hand, it is generally distributed
through Borneo, except in the mountains, or
where the population is dense. In favourable
places, the hunter may, by good fortune, see three
or four in a day.

Except in the pairing time, the old males
usually live by themselves. The old females, and
the immature males, on the other hand, are often
met with in twos and threes ; and the former
occasionally have young with them, though the
pregnant females usually separate themselves, and
sometimes remain apart after they have given birth
to their offspring. The young Orangs seem to
remain unusually long under their mother's protec-
tion, probably in consequence of their slow growth.
While climbing, the mother always carries her
young against her bosom, the young holding on by
his mother's hair.1 At what time of life the Orang-
Utan becomes capable of propagation, and how
long the females go with young, is unknown, bub
it is probable that they are not adult until they

1 See Mr. "Wallace's account of an infant "Orang-utan," in
the Annals of Natural History for 1856. Mr. Wallace provided
his interesting charge with an artificial mother of buffalo-skin,
but the cheat was too successful. The infant's entire experience
led it to associate teats with hair, and feeling the latter, it spent
its existence in vain endeavours to discover the former.

48 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

arrive at ten or fifteen years of age. A female which
lived for five years at Batavia, had not attained
one-third the height of the wild females. It is
probable that, after reaching adult years, they go
on growing, though slowly, and that they live to
forty or fifty years. The Dyaks tell of old Orangs,
which have not only lost all their teeth, but which
find it so troublesome to climb, that they maintain
themselves on windfalls and juicy herbage.

The Orang is sluggish, exhibiting none of that
marvellous activity characteristic of the Gibbons.
Hunger alone seems to stir him to exertion, and
when it is stilled, he relapses into repose. When
the animal sits, it curves its back and bows its
head, so as to look straight down on the ground ;
sometimes it holds on with its hands by a higher
branch, sometimes lets them hang phlegmatically
down by its side — and in these positions the
Orang will remain, for hours together, in the same
spot, almost without stirring, and only now and
then giving utterance to his deep, growling voice.
By day, he usually climbs from one tree-top to
another, and only at night descends to the ground,
and if then threatened with danger, he seeks
refuge among the underwood. When not hunted,
he remains a long time in the same locality, and
sometimes stops for many days on the same tree
— a firm place among its branches serving him for
a bed. It is rare for the Orang to pass the night
in the summit of a large tree, probably because ii

I THE ORANG 49

is too windy and cold there for him ; but, as sooti
as night draws on, he descends from the height
and seeks out a fit bed in the lower and darker
part, or in the leafy top of a small tree, among
which he prefers Nibong Palms, Pandani, or one of
those parasitic Orchids which give the primaeval
forests of Borneo so characteristic and striking
an appearance. But wherever he determines to
sleep, there he prepares himself a sort of nest :
little boughs and leaves are drawn together round
the selected spot, and bent crosswise over one
another ; while to make the bed soft, great leaves
of Ferns, of Orchids, of Pandanusfascicularis, Nipa
fruticans, &c., are laid over them. Those which
Mtiller saw, many of them being very fresh, were
situated at a height of ten to twenty-five feet above
the ground, and had a circumference, on the
average, of two or three feet. Some were packed
many inches thick with Pandanus leaves ; others
were remarkable only for the cracked twigs, which,
united in a common centre, formed a regular
platform. " The rude htit" says Sir James Brooke,
" which they are stated to build in the trees,
would be more properly called a seat or nest, for
it has no roof or cover of any sort. The facility
with which they form this nest is curious, and I
had an opportunity of seeing a wounded female
weave the branches together and seat herself,
within a minute."

According to the Dyaks the Orang rarely leaves

168

50 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

his bed before the sun is well above the horizon
and has dissipated the mists. He gets up about
nine, and goes to bed again about five ; but some-
times not till late in the twilight. He lies some-
times on his back ; or, by way of change, turns on
one side or the other, drawing his limbs up to his
body, and resting his head on his hand. When
the night is cold, windy, or rainy, he usually
covers his body with a heap of Pandanus,
Nipa, or Fern leaves, like those of which his
bed is made, and he is especially careful to
wrap up his head in them. It is this habit
of covering himself up which has probably
led to the fable that the Orang builds huts in
the trees.

Although the Orang resides mostly amid the
boughs of great trees, during the daytime, he is
very rarely seen squatting on a thick branch, as
other apes, and particularly the Gibbons, do. The
Orang, on the contrary, confines himself to the
slender leafy branches, so that he is seen right at
the top of the trees, a mode of life which is closely
related to the constitution of his hinder limbs,
and especially to that of his seat. For this is
provided with no callosities, such as are possessed
by many of the lower apes, and even by the
Gibbons ; and those bones of the pelvis, which are
termed the ischia, and which form the solid
framework of the surface on which the body rests
in the sitting posture, are not expanded like those

1 THE OHANG 51

of the apes which possess callosities, but are more
like those of man.

An Orang climbs so slowly and cautiously,1 as,
in this act, to resemble a man more than an ape,
taking great care of his feet, so that injury of
them seems to affect him far more than it does
other apes. Unlike the Gibbons, whose forearms
do the greater part of the work, as they swing
from branch to branch, the Orang never makes
even the smallest jump. In climbing, he moves
alternately one hand and one foot, or, after having
laid fast hold with the hands, he draws up both
feet together. In passing from one tree to another,
he always seeks out a place where the twigs of
both come close together, or interlace. Even
when closely pursued, his circumspection is
amazing : he shakes the branches to see if they
will bear him, and then bending an overhanging
bough down by throwing his weight gradually
along it, he makes a bridge from the tree he
wishes to quit to the next.1

On the ground the Orang always goes labori-
ously and shakily, on all fours. At starting he
will run faster than a man, though he may soon
be overtaken. The very long arms which, when

1 "They are the slowest and least active of all the monkey
tribe, and their motions are surprisingly awkward and un-
couth."— Sir James Brooke, in the Proceedings of the Zoological
Society, 1841.

2 Mr. Wallace's account of the progression of the Orang
almost exactly corresponds with this.

52 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

he runs, are but little bent, raise the body of the
Orang remarkably, so that he assumes much the
posture of a very old man bent down by age, and
snaking his way along by the help of a stick. In
walking, the body is usually directed straight for-
ward, -unlike the other apes, which run more or
less obliquely ; except the Gibbons, who in these
as in so many other respects, depart remarkably
from their fellows.

The Orang cannot put its feet flat on the ground,
but is supported upon their outer edges, the heel
resting more on the ground, while the curved toes
partly rest upon the ground by the upper side of
their first joint, the two outermost toes of each
foot completely resting on this surface. The hands
are held in the opposite manner, their inner edges
serving as the chief support. The fingers are
then bent out in such a manner that their fore-
most joints, especially those of the two innermost
fingers, rest upon the ground by their upper sides,
while the point of the free and straight thumb
serves as an additional fulcrum.

The Orang never stands on its hind legs, and
all the pictures, representing it as so doing, are
as false as the assertion that it defends itself
with sticks, and the like.

The long arms are of especial use, not only in
climbing, but in the gathering of food from boughs
to which the animal could not trust his weight.
Figs, blossoms, and young leaves of various kinds,

I THE ORANG 53

constitute the chief nutriment of the Orang ; but
strips of bamboo two or three feet long were found
in the stomach of a male. They are not known to
eat living animals.

Although, when taken young, the Orang-Utan
soon becomes domesticated, and indeed seems to
court human society, it is naturally a very wild and
shy animal, though apparently sluggish and melan-
choly. The Dyaks affirm, that when the old males
are wounded with arrows only, they will occasion-
ally leave the trees and rush raging upon their
enemies, whose sole safety lies in instant flight,
as they are sure to be killed if caught.1

1 Sir James Brooke, in a letter to Mr. Waterhouse, published
in the proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1841, says : —
"On the habits of the Orangs, as far as I have been able to
observe them, I may remark that they are as dull and slothful
as can well be conceived, and on no occasion, when pursuing
them, did they move so fast as to preclude my keeping pace
with them easily through a moderately clear forest ; and even
when obstructions below (such as wading up to the neck) allowed
them to get away some distance, they were sure to stop and
allow me to come up. I never observed the slightest attempt
at defence, and the wood which sometimes rattled about our
ears was broken by their weight, and not thrown, as some
persons represent. If pushed to extremity, however, the
Pappan could not be otherwise than formidable, and one un-
fortunate man, who, with a party, was trying to catch a large
one alive, lost two of his fingers, besides being severely bitten
on the face, whilst the animal finally beat otf his pursuers and
escaped."

Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, affirms that he has several
times observed them throwing down branches when pursued.
" It is true he does not throw them at a person, but casts them
down vertically ; for it is evident that a bough cannot be thrown
to any distance from the top of a lofty tree. In one case u
female Mias, on a durian tree, kept up for at least ten minutes
a continuous shower of branches and of the heavy, spined fruits,

54 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

But, though possessed of immense strength, it
is rare for the Orang to attempt to defend itself,
especially when attacked with fire-arms. On such
occasions he endeavours to hide himself, or to
escape along the topmost branches of the trees,
breaking off and throwing down the boughs as he
goes. When wounded he betakes himself to the
highest attainable point of the tree, and emits
a singular cry, consisting at first of high notes,
which at length deepen into a low roar, not
unlike that of a panther. While giving out
the high notes the Orang thrusts out his lips into
a funnel shape ; but in uttering the low notes he
holds his mouth wide open, and at the same time
the great throat bag, or laryngeal sac, becomes
distended.

According to the Dyaks, the only animal the
Orang measures his strength with is the crocodile,
who occasionally seizes him on his visits to the
water side. But they say that the Orang is more
than a match for his enemy, and beats him to
death, or rips up his throat by pulling the jaws
asunder !

Much of what has been here stated was

as large as 32-pounders, which most effectually kept us clear of
the tree she was on. She could be seen breaking them off and
throwing them down with every appearance of rage, uttering at
intervals a loud pumping grunt, and evidently meaning mid-
chief." — " On the Habits of the Orang-Utan," Annals of Natural
History. 1856. This statement, it will be observed, is quite
in accordance with that contained in the letter of the Redder, t
Palm quoted above (p. 23).

I THE ORANG 55

probably derived by Dr. Miiller from the reports
of -his Dyak hunters; but a large male, four feet
high, lived in captivity, under his observation,
for a month, and receives a very bad character.

" He was a very wild beast," says Miiller, " of
prodigious strength, and false and wicked to the
last degree. If any one approached he rose up
slowly with a low growl, fixed his eyes in the
direction in which he meant to make his attack,
slowly passed his hand between the bars of his
cage, and then extending his long arm, gave a
sudden grip — usually at the face." He never
tried to bite (though Orangs will bite one another),
his great weapons of offence and defence being his
hands.

His intelligence was very great; and Miiller
remarks that though the faculties of the Orang
have been estimated too highly, yet Cuvier, had
he seen this specimen, would not have considered
its intelligence to be only a little higher than that
of the dog.

His hearing was very acute, but the sense of
vision seemed to be less perfect. The under lip
was the great organ of touch, and played a very
important part in drinking, being thrust out like
a trough, so as either to catch the falling rain, or
to receive the contents of the half cocoa-nut shell
full of water with which the Orang was supplied,
an I which, in drinking, he poured into the trough
thus formed.

56 THE MAN-LIKE APES j

In Borneo the Orang-Utan of the Malays goes
by the name of " Mias " among the Dyaks, who
distinguish several kinds as Mias Pappan, or
ZimOy Mias Kassu, and Mias Rambi. Whether
these are distinct species, however, or whether
they are mere races, and how far any of them are
identical with the Su mat ran Orang, as Mr.
Wallace thinks the Mias Pappan to be, are
problems which are at present undecided ; and
the variability of these great apes is so extensive,
that the settlement of the question is a matter
of great difficulty. Of the form called " Mias
Pappan," Mr. Wallace l observes,

"It is known by its large size, and by the lateral expansion
of the face into fatty protuberances, or ridges, over the temporal
muscles, which have been mis-termed callosities^ as they are
perfectly soft, smooth, and flexible. Five of this form, meas-
ured by me, varied only from 4 feet 1 inch to 4 feet 2 inches in
height, from the heel to the crown of the head, the girth of the
body from 3 feet to 3 feet 7J inches, and the extent of the out-
stretched arms from 7 feet 2 inches to 7 feet 6 inches ; the width
of the face from 10 to 13| inches. The colour and length of
the hair varied in different individuals, and in different parts of
the same individual ; some possessed a rudimentary nail on the
great toe, others none at all ; but they otherwise present no ex-
ternal differences on which to establish even varieties of a
species.

"Yet, when we examine the crania of these individuals, we
find remarkable differences of form, proportion, and dimension,
no two being exactly alike. The slope of the profile, and the
projection of the muzzle, together with the size of the cranium,

1 On the Orang-Utan, or Mias of Borneo, Annals of Natural
History, 1856.

I THE ORANQ 57

offer differences as decided as those existing between the most
strongly marked forms of the Caucasian and African crania in
the human species. The orbits vary in width and height, the
cranial ridge is either single or double, either much or little
developed, and the zygomatic aperture varies considerably in
size. This variation in the proportions of the crania enables us
satisfactorily to explain the marked difference presented by the
single-crested and double-crested skulls, which have been
thought to prove the existence of two large species of Orang.
The external surface of the skull varies considerably in
size, as do also the zygomatic aperture and the temporal
muscle ; but they bear no necessary relation to each other, a
small muscle often existing with a large cranial surface, and vice
versd. Now, those skulls which have the largest and strongest
jaws and the widest zygomatic aperture, have the muscles so
large that they meet on the crown of the skull, and deposit the
bony ridge which separates them, and which is the highest in
that which has the smallest cranial surface. In those which
combine a large surface with comparatively weak jaws, and small
zygomatic aperture, the muscles, on each side, do not extend to
the crown, a space of from 1 to 2 inches remaining between them,
and along their margins small ridges are formed. Intermediate
forms are found, in which the ridges meet only in the hinder
part of the skull. The form and size of the ridges are therefore
independent of age, being sometimes more strongly developed in
the less aged animal. Professor Temminck states that the series
of skulls in the Leyden Museum shows the same result."

Mr. Wallace observed two male adult Orangs
(Mias Kassu of the Dyaks), however, so very
different from any of these that he concludes
them to be specifically distinct; they were
respectively 3 feet 8J inches and 3 feet 9| inches
high, and possessed no sign of the cheek ex-
crescences, but otherwise resembled the larger
kinds. The skull has no crest, but two bony

58 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

ridges, If inches to 2 inches apart, as in the
Simia morio of Professor Owen. The teeth,
however, are immense, equalling or surpassing
those of the other species. The females of both
these kinds, according to Mr. Wallace, are devoid
of excrescences, and resemble the smaller males,
but are shorter by 1^ to 3 inches, and their
canine teeth are comparatively small, subtruncated
and dilated at the base, as in the so-called Simia
morio, which is, in all probability, the skull of
a female of the same species as the smaller males.
Both males and females of this smaller species
are distinguishable, according to Mr. Wallace, by
the comparatively large size of the middle
incisors of the upper jaw.

So far as I am aware, no one has attempted to
dispute the accuracy of the statements which I
have just quoted regarding the habits of the two
Asiatic man-like apes ; and if true, they must be
admitted as evidence, that such an Ape —

Istly, May readily move along the ground in
the erect, or semi-erect, position, and without
direct support from its arms.

2ndly, That it may possess an extremely loud
voice, so loud as to be readily heard one or two
miles.

Srdly, That it may be capable of great vicious-
ness and violence when irritated : and this is
especially true of adult males.

I THE CHIMPANZEE 59

4thly, That it may build a nest to sleep in.

Such being well established facts respecting the
Asiatic Anthropoids, analogy alone might justify
us in expecting the African species to offer similar
peculiarities, separately or combined ; or, at any
rate, would destroy the force of any attempted a
priori argument against such direct testimony
as might be adduced in favour of their existence.
And, if the organization of any of the African Apes
could be demonstrated to fit it better than either
of its Asiatic allies for the erect position and for
efficient attack, there would be still less reason for
doubting its occasional adoption of the upright
attitude or of aggressive proceedings.

From the time of Tyson and Tulpius downwards,
the habits of the young CHIMPANZEE in a state of
captivity have been abundantly reported and com-
mented upon. But trustworthy evidence as to
the manners and customs of adult anthropoids of
this species, in their native woods, was almost
wanting up to the time of the publication of the
paper by Dr. Savage, to which I have already
referred ; containing notes of the observations
which he made, and of the information which he
collected from sources which he considered trust-
worthy, while resident at Cape Palmas, at the
north-western limit of the Bight of Benin.

The adult Chimpanzees measured by Dr. Savage,
never exceeded, though the males may almost
attain, five feet in height.

60 TITE MAN-LIKE APES 1

"When at rest the sitting posture is that generally assumed.
They are sometimes seen standing and walking, but when thus
detected, they immediately take to all fours, and flee from the
presence of the observer. Such is their organisation that they
cannot stand erect, but lean forward. Hence they are seen,
when standing, with the hands clasped over the occiput, or the
lumbar region, which would seem necessary to balance or ease
of posture.

"The toes of the adult are strongly flexed and turned in-
wards, and cannot be perfectly straightened. In the attempt
the skin gathers into thick folds on the back, showing that the
full expansion of the foot, as is necessary in walking, is un-
natural. The natural position is on all fours, the body anteriorly
resting upon the knuckles. These are greatly enlarged, with
the skin protuberant and thickened like the sole of the foot.

"They are expert climbers, as one would suppose from their
organisation. In their gambols they swing from limb to limb
to a great distance, and leap with astonishing agility. It is not
unusual to see the * old folks ' (in the language of an observer)
sitting under a tree regaling themselves with fruit and friendly
chat, while their 'children' are leaping around them, and
swinging from tree to tree with boisterous merriment.

"As seen here, they cannot be called gregarious, seldom
more than five, or ten at most, being found together. It has
been said, on good authority, that they occasionally assemble
in large numbers, in gambols. My informant asserts that he
saw once not less than fifty so engaged ; hooting, screaming,
and drumming with sticks upon old logs, which is done in the
latter case with equal facility by the four extremities. They do
not appear ever to act on the offensive, and seldom, if ever
really, on the defensive. When about to be captured, they
resist by throwing their arms about their opponent, and
attempting to draw him into contact with their teeth." (Savage,
I.e. p. 384.)

With respect to this last point Dr. Savage is
very explicit in another place :

I THE CHIMPANZEE 61

"Biting is their principal art of defence. I have seen one
man who had been thus severely wounded in the feet.

' 'The strong development of the canine teeth in the adult
would seem to indicate a carnivorous propensity ; but in no
state save that of domestication do they manifest it. At first
they reject flesh, but easily acquire a fondness for it. The
canines are early developed, and evidently designed to act the
important part of weapons of defence. When in contact with
man almost the first effort of the animal is — to bite.

"They avoid the abodes of men, and build their habitations
in trees. Their construction is more that of nests than huts, as
they have been erroneously termed by some naturalists. They
generally build not far above the ground. Branches or twigs ar^
bent, or partly broken, and crossed, and the whole supported by
the body of a limb or a crotch. Sometimes a nest will be found near
the end of a strong leafy branch twenty or thirty feet from the
ground. One I have lately seen that could not be less than
forty feet, and more probably it was fifty. But this is an un-
usual height.

" Their dwelling-place is not permanent, but changed in
pursuit of food and solitude, according to the force of circum-
stances. We more often see them in elevated places ; but this
arises from the fact that the low grounds, being more favourable
for the natives' rice-farms, are the oftener cleared, and hence
are almost always wanting in suitable trees for their nests. . . .
It is seldom that more than one or two nests are seen upon the
same tree, or in the same neighbourhood : five have been found,
but it was an unusual circumstance." . . .

" They are very filthy in their habits. ... It is a tradition
with the natives generally here, that they were once members
of their own tribe : that for their depraved habits they were
expelled from all human society, and, that through an obstinate
indulgence of their vile propensities, they have degenerated into
their present state and organisation. They are, however, eaten by
them, and when cooked with the oil and pulp of the palm-nut
considered a highly palatable morsel.

"They exhibit a remarkable degree of intelligence in their
habits, and, on the part of the mother, much affection for theii

62 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

young. The second female described was upon a tree when first
discovered, with her mate and two young ones (a male and a
female). Her first impulse was to descend with great rapidity
and make off into the thicket, with her mate and female off-
spring. The young male remaining behind, she soon returned
to the rescue. She ascended and took him in her arms, at
which moment she was shot, the ball passing through the
fore-arm of the young one, on its way to the heart of the
mother. . . .

" In a recent case, the mother, when discovered, remained
upon the tree with her offspring, watching intently the move-
ments of the hunter. As he took aim, she motioned with her
hand, precisely in the manner of a human being, to have him
desist and go away. When the "wound has not proved instantly
fatal, they have been known to stop the flow of blood by press-
ing with the hand upon the part, and when this did not
succeed, to apply leaves and grass .... "When shot, they give
a sudden screech, not unlike that of a human being in sudden
and acute distress."

The ordinary voice of the Chimpanzee, however,
is affirmed to be hoarse, guttural, and not very loud,
somewhat like " whoo-whoo." (1. c. p. 365.)

The analogy of the Chimpanzee to the Orang,
in its nest-building habit and in the mode of form-
ing its nest, is exceedingly interesting ; while, on
the other hand, the activity of this ape, and its
tendency to bite, are particulars in which it rather
resembles the Gibbons. In extent of geographical
range, again, the Chimpanzees — which are found
from Sierra Leone to Congo — remind one of the
Gibbons, rather than of either of the other man-
like apes ; and it seems not unlikely that, as is
the case with the Gibbons, there may be several

I THE GORILLA 63

species spread over the geographical area of the
genus.

The same excellent observer, from whom I
have borrowed the preceding account of the habits
of the adult Chimpanzee, published fifteen years
ago,1 an account of the GORILLA, which has, in its
most essential points, been confirmed by subse-
quent observers, and to which so very little has
really been added, that in justice to Dr. Savage I
give it almost in full.

" It should be borne in mind that my account is based upon
the statements of the aborigines of that region (the Gaboon).
In this connection, it may also be proper for me to remark,
that having been a missionary resident for several years, study-
ing, from habitual intercourse, the African mind and character,
I felt myself prepared to discriminate and decide upon the
probability of their statements. Besides, being familiar with
the history and habits of its interesting congener ( Trog. niger,
Geoff.), I was able to separate their accounts of the two animals,
which, having the same locality and a similarity of habit, are
confounded in the minds of the mass, especially as but few —
such as traders to the interior and huntsmen — have ever seen
the animal in question.

" The tribe from which our knowledge of the animal is derived,
and whose territory forms its habitat, is the Mpongwe, occupying
both banks of the River Gaboon, from its mouth to some fifty
or sixty miles upward. . . .

" If the word * Pongo' be of African origin, it is probably a
corruption of the word Mpongwc, the name of the tribe on the
banks of the Gaboon, and hence applied to the region they
inhabit. Their local name for the Chimpanzee is Ench6-eko, as

1 Notice of the external characters and habits of Troglodytea
Gorilla. Boston Journal of Natural History, 1847.

FIG. 10.— The Gorilla, after Wolf.

I THE GORILLA 65

near as it can be Anglicised, from which the common term
* Jocko ' probably comes. The Mpongwa appellation for its
new congener is Eng6-ena, prolonging the sound of the first
vowel, and slightly sounding the second.

"The habitat of the Eng6-ena is the interior of lower Guinea,
whilst that of the Ench6-eko is nearer the sea -board.

"Its height is about five feet ; it is disproportionately broad
across the shoulders, thickly covered with coarse black hair,
which is said to be similar in its arrangement to that of the
Ench6-eko ; with age it becomes gray, which fact has given
rise to the report that both animals are seen of different
colours.

"Head. — The prominent features of the head are, the great
width and elongation of the face, the depth of the molar region,
the branches of the lower jaw being very deep and extending
far backward, and the comparative smallness of the cranial
portion ; the eyes are very large, and said to be like those of
the Enche-eko, a bright hazel ; nose broad and flat, slightly
elevated towards the root ; the muzzle broad, and prominent lips
and chin, with scattered gray hairs ; the under lip highly mobile,
and capable of great elongation when the animal is enraged,
then hanging over the chin ; skin of the face and ears naked,
and of a dark brown, approaching to black.

"The most remarkable feature of the head is a high ridge,
or crest of hair, in the course of the sagittal suture, which
meets posterior ily with a transverse ridge of the same, but less
prominent, running round from the back of one ear to the
other. The animal has the power of moving the scalp freely
forward and back, and when enraged is said to contract it
strongly over the brow, thus bringing down the hairy ridge and
pointing the hair forward, so as to present an indescribably
ferocious aspect.

"Neck short, thick, and hairy ; chest and shoulders very broad,
said to be fully double the size of the Enche-ekos ; arms very
long, reaching some way below the knee — the fore-arm much
the shortest ; hands very large, the thumbs much larger than
the fingers. . . .

" The gait is shuffling ; the motion of the body, which is never
169

66 THE MAN-LIRE APES (

npright as in man, but bent forward, is somewhat rolling, 07
from side to side. The arms being longer than the Chimpanzee,
it does not stoop as much in walking ; like that animal, it
makes progression by thrusting its arms forward, resting tho
hands on the ground, and then giving the body a half jumping,
half swinging motion between them. In this act it is said not
to flex the fingers, as does the Chimpanzee, resting on its
knuckles, but to extend them, making a fulcrum of the hand.
"When it assumes the walking posture, to which it is said to
be much inclined, it balances its huge body by flexing its arms
upward.

FIG. 11.— Gorilla walking (after Wolff).

" They live in bands, but are not so numerous as the Chim-
panzees ; the females generally exceed the other sex in number.
My informants all agree in the assertion that but one adult
male is seen in a band ; that when the young males grow up,
a contest takes place for mastery, and the strongest, by kill-
ing and driving out the others, establishes himself as the head
of the community."

Dr. Savage repudiates the stories about the
Gorillas carrying off women and vanquishing
elephants and then adds —

I THE GORILLA 67

" Their dwellings, if they may be so called, are similar to
those of the 'Chimpanzee, consisting simply of a few sticks and
leafy branches, supported by the crotches and limbs of trees :
they afford no shelter, and are occupied only at night.

"They are exceedingly ferocious, and always offensive in
their habits, never running from man, as does the Chimpanzee.
They are objects of terror to the natives, and are never en-
countered by them except on the defensive. The few that
have been captured were killed by elephant hunters and native
traders, as they came suddenly upon them while passing through
the forests.

"It is said that when the male is first seen he gives a
terrific yell, that resounds far and wide through the forest,
something like kh — ah ! kh — ah ! prolonged and shrill. His
enormous jaws are widely opened at each expiration, his under
lip hangs over the chin, and the hairy ridge and scalp are con-
tracted upon the brow, presenting an aspect of indescribable
ferocity.

"The females and young, at the first cry, quickly disappear.
He then approaches the enemy in great fury, pouring out his
horrid cries in quick succession. The hunter awaits his approach
with his gun extended ; if his aim is not sure, he permits the
animal to grasp the barrel, and as he carries it to his mouth
(which is his habit) he fires. Should the gun fail to go off, the
barrel (that of the ordinary musket, which is thin) is crushed
between his teeth, and the encounter soon proves fatal to the
hunter.

" In the wild state, their habits are in general like those of
the Troglodytes niger, building their nests loosely in trees,
living on similar fruits, and changing their place of resort from
force of circumstances."

Dr. Savage's observations were confirmed and
supplemented by those of Mr. Ford, who communi-
cated an interesting paper on the Gorilla to the
Philadelphian Academy of Sciences, in 1852.
With respect to the geographical distribution of

68 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

this greatest of all the man-like Apes, Mr. Ford
remarks :

"This animal inhabits the range of mountains that traverse
the interior of Guinea, from the Cameroon in the north, to
Angola in the south, and about 100 miles inland, and called by
the geographers Crystal Mountains. The limit to which this
animal extends, either north or south, I am unable to define.
But that limit is doubtless some distance north of this river
[Gaboon]. I was able to certify myself of this fact in a late
excursion to the head-waters of the Mooney (Danger) River,
which comes into the sea some sixty miles from this place. I
was informed (credibly, I think) that they were numerous
among the mountains in which that river rises, and far north of
that.

" In the south, this species extends to the Congo River, as I am
told by native traders who have visited the coast between the
Gaboon and that river. Beyond that, I am not informed. This
animal is only found at a distance from the coast in most cases,
and, according to my best information, approaches it nowhere so
nearly as on the south side of this river, where they have been
found within ten miles of the sea. This, however, is only of
late occurrence. I am informed by some of the oldest Mpongwe
men that formerly he was only found on the sources of the river,
but that at present he may be found within half-a-day's walk of
its mouth. Formerly he inhabited the mountainous ridge where
Bushmen alone inhabited, but now he boldly approaches the
Mpongwe plantations. This is doubtless the reason of the
scarcity of information in years past, as the opportunities for
receiving a knowledge of the animal have not been wanting ;
traders having for one hundred years frequented this river, and
specimens, such as have been brought here within a year, could
not have been exhibited without having attracted the attention
of the most stupid."

One specimen Mr. Ford examined weighed
I701bs., without the thoracic, or pelvic, viscera,

I THE GORILLA 69

and measured four feet four inches round the
chest. This writer describes so minutely and
graphically the onslaught of the Gorilla — though
he does not for a moment pretend to have wit-
nessed the scene — that I am tempted to give this
part of his paper in full, for comparison with other
narratives :

" He always rises to his feet when making an attack, though
he approaches his antagonist in a stooping posture.

"Though he never lies in wait, yet, when he hears, sees, or
scents a man, he immediately utters his characteristic cry, pre-
pares for an attack, and always acts on the offensive. The cry
he utters resembles a grunt more than a growl, and is similar to
the cry of the Chimpanzee, when irritated, but vastly louder. It
is said to be .audible at a great distance. His preparation
consists in attending the females and young ones, by whom he
is usually accompanied, to a little distance. He, however, soon
returns, with his crest erect and projecting forward, his nostrils
dilated, and his under-lip thrown down, at the same time
uttering his characteristic yell, designed, it would seem, to
terrify his antagonist. Instantly, unless he is disabled by a
well-directed shot, he makes an onset, and, striking his antago-
nist with the palm of his hands, or seizing him with a grasp
from which there is no escape, he dashes him upon the ground,
and lacerates him with his tusks;

" He is said to seize a musket, and instantly crush the barrel

between his teeth This animal's savage nature

is very well shown by the implacable desperation of a young
one that was brought here. It was taken very young, and kept
four months, and many means were used to tame it ; but it was
incorrigible, so that it bit me an hour before it died."

Mr. Ford discredits the house -building and
elephant-driving stories, and says that no well-

70 THE MAN-LIKE APES 1

informed natives believe them. They are tales
told to children.

I might quote other testimony to a similar
effect, but, as it appears to me, less carefully
weighed and sifted, from the letters of MM.
Franquet and Gautier Laboullay, appended to
the memoir of M. I. G. St. Hilaire, which I have
already cited.

Bearing in mind what is known regarding the
Orang and the Gibbon, the statements of Dr.
Savage and Mr. Ford do not appear to me to be
justly open to criticism on a priori grounds. The
Gibbons, as we have seen, readily assume the
erect posture, but the Gorilla is far better fitted by
its organization for that attitude than are the
Gibbons : if the laryngeal pouches of the Gibbons,
as is very likely, are important in giving volume
to a voice which can be heard for half a league,
the Gorilla, which has similar sacs, more largely
developed, and whose bulk is fivefold that of a
Gibbon, may well be audible for twice that dis-
tance. If the Orang fights with its hands, the
Gibbons and Chimpanzees with their teeth, the
Gorilla may, probably enough, do either or both ;
nor is there anything to be said against either
Chimpanzee or Gorilla building a nest, when it is
proved that the Orang-Utan habitually performs
that feat.

With all this evidence, now ten to fifteen years
old, before the world, it is not a little surprising

I THE GORILLA 71

that the assertions of a recent traveller, who, so far
as the Gorilla is concerned, really does very little
more than repeat, on his own authority, the state-
ments of Savage and of Ford, should have met
with so much and such bitter opposition. If sub-
traction be made of what was known before, the
sum and substance of what M. Du Chaillu has
affirmed as a matter of his own observation
respecting the Gorilla, is, that, in advancing to the
attack, the great brute beats his chest with his
fists. I confess I see nothing very improbable,
or vei y much worth disputing about, in this state-
ment.

Witl« respect to the other man-like Apes of
Africa, II. Du Chaillu tells us absolutely nothing,
of his >wn knowledge, regarding the common
Chimpanzee; but he informs us of a bald-headed
species or variety, the n&chiego mlouve, which
builds itself a shelter, and of another rare kind
with a comparatively small face, large facial angle,
and peculiar note, resembling " Kooloo."

As the Orang shelters itself with a rough
coverlet of leaves, and the common Chimpanzee,
according to that eminently trustworthy observer
Dr. Savage, makes a sound like " Whoo-whoo," —
the grounds of the summary repudiation with
which M. Du Chaillu's statements on these matters
have been met are not obvious.

If I have abstained from quoting M. Du Chaillu's
work, then, it is not because I discern any in*

72 THE MAN-LIKE APES I

herent improbability in his assertions respecting
the man-like Apes ; nor from any wish to throw
suspicion on his veracity ; but because, in my
opinion, so long as his narrative remains in its
present state of unexplained and apparently
inexplicable confusion, it has no claim to original
authority respecting any subject whatsoever.
It may be truth, but it is not evidence.

African Cannibalism in the Sixteenth Century.

In turning over Pigafetta's version of the nanative of Lopez,
which I have quoted above, I came upon so curious and unex-
pected an anticipation, by some two centuries and a half, of one
of the most startling parts of M. Du Chaillu's narrative, that I
cannot refrain from drawing attention to it in a note, although
I must confess that the subject is not strictly relevant to the
matter in hand.

In the fifth chapter of the first book of the " Descriptio,"
" Concerning the north era part of the Kingdom of Congo and
its boundaries," is mentioned a people whose king is called
" Maniloango," and who live under the equator, and as far
westward as Cape Lopez. This appears to be the country now
inhabited by the Ogobai and Bakalai according to M. Du
Chaillu. — " Beyond these dwell another people called 'Anzi-
ques,' of incredible ferocity, for they eat one another, sparing
neither friends nor relations."

These people are armed with small bows bound tightly round
with snake skins, and strung with a reed or rush. Their arrows,
short and slender, but made, of hard wood, are shot with great
rapidity. They have iron axes, the handles of which are bound
round with snake skins, and swords with scabbards of the same
material ; for defensive armour they employ elephant hides.
They cut their skins when young, so as to produce scars. " Their
butchers' shops are filled with human flesh instead of that of
oxen or sheep. For they eat the enemies whom they take in
battle. They fatten, slay and devour their slaves also, unless

AFRICAN CANNIBALISM

FIG. 12.— Butcher's Shop of the Anziques Anno 1598.

they think they shall get a good price for them ; and, moreover,
sometimes for weariness of life or desire of glory (for they think

I AFRICAN CANNIBALISM 75

it a great thing and the sign of a generous soul to despise life),
or for love of their rulers, offer themselves up for food."

"There are indeed many cannibals, as in the Eastern Indies
and in Brazil and elsewhere, but none such as these, since the
others only eat their enemies, but these their own blood
relations."

The careful illustrators of Pigafetta have done their best to
enable the reader to realize this account of the "Anziques,"
and the unexampled butcher's shop represented in Fig. 12, is a
facsimile of part of their Plate XII.

M. Du Chaillu's account of the Fans accords most singularly
with what Lopez here narrates of the Anziques. He speaks of
their small crossbows and little arrows, of their axes and knives,
4 c ingeniously sheathed in snake skins." "They tattoo them-
selves more than any other tribes I have met north of the
equator." And all the world knows what M. Du Chaillu says
of their cannibalism — "Presently we passed a woman who
solved all doubt. She bore with her a piece of the thigh of a
human body, just as we should go to market and carry thence a
roast or steak." M. Du Chaillu's artist cannot generally be
accused of any want of courage in embodying the statements of
his author, and it is to be regretted that, with so good an ex-
cuse, he has not furnished us with a fitting companion to the
sketch of the brothers De Bry.

II

ON THE RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE
LOWER ANIMALS

Multis videri potent, raajorem esse differentiam Simias et
Hominis, quam diei et noctis ; verum tamcn hi, comparatione
instituta inter summos Europse Heroes et Hottentottes ad
Caput bonae spei degentes, difficillime sibi persuadebunt, has
eosdera habere natales ; vel si virginem nobilem aulicam,
maxime comtam et humanissimam, conferre vellent cum
homine sylvestri et sibi relicto, vix augurari possent, hunc el
illam ejusdem esse speciei. — Linncei Amosnitates Acad.
" Anthropomorpha."

THE question of questions for mankind — the
problem which underlies all others, and is more
deeply interesting than any other — is the ascer-
tainment of the place which Man occupies in
nature and of his relations to the universe of
things. Whence our race has come ; what are
the limits of our power over nature, and of
nature's power over us; to what goal we are
tending; are the problems which present them-
selves anew and with undiminished interest to

78 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

every man born into the world. Most of us,
shrinking from the difficulties and dangers which
beset the seeker after original answers to these
riddles, are contented to ignore them altogether,
or to smother the investigating spirit under the
feather-bed of respected and respectable tradition.
But, in every age, one or two restless spirits,
blessed with that constructive genius, which can
only build on a secure foundation, or cursed with
the spirit of mere scepticism, are unable to follow
in the well-worn and comfortable track of their
forefathers and contemporaries, and unmindful of
thorns and stumbling-blocks, strike out into paths
of their own. The sceptics end in the infidelity
which asserts the problem to be insoluble, or in
the atheism which denies the existence of any
orderly progress and governance of things: the
men of genius propound solutions which grow
into systems of Theology or of Philosophy, or veiled
in musical language which suggests more than it
asserts, take the shape of the Poetry of an epoch.
Each such answer to the great question, in-
variably asserted by -the followers of its pro-
pounder, if not by himself, to be complete and
final, remains in high authority and esteem, it
may be for one century, or it may be for twenty :
but, as invariably, Time proves each reply to have
been a mere approximation to the truth — tolerable
chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by
whom it was accepted, and wholly intolerable

II MENTAL ECDYSES OF MAN 79

when tested by the larger knowledge of their
successors.

In a well-worn metaphor, a parallel is drawn
between the life of man and the metamorphosis
of the caterpillar into the butterfly ; but the com-
parison may be more just as well as more novel, if
for its former term we take the mental progress
of the race. History shows that the human mind,
fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodi-
cally grows too large for its theoretical coverings,
and bursts them asunder to appear in new habili-
ments, as the feeding and growing grub, at
intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes
another, itself but temporary. Truly the imago
state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but
every moult is a step gained, and of such there
have been many.

Since the revival of learning, whereby the
Western races of Europe were enabled to enter
upon that progress towards true knowledge, which
was commenced by the philosophers of Greece,
but was almost arrested in subsequent long ages
of intellectual stagnation, or, at most, gyration,
the human larva has been feeding vigorously, and
moulting in proportion. A skin of some dimension
was cast in the 16th century, and another towards
the end of the 18th, while, within the last fifty
years, the extraordinary growth of every depart-
ment of physical science has spread among us
mental food of so nutritious and stimulating a

80 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

character that a new ecdysis seems imminent.
But this is a process not unusually accompanied
by many throes and some sickness and debility,
or, it may be, by graver disturbances; so that
every good citizen must feel bound to facilitate
the process, and even if he have nothing but a
scalpel to work withal, to ease the cracking in-
tegument to the best of his ability.

In this duty lies my excuse for the publication
of these essays. For it will be admitted that some
knowledge of man's position in the animate world
is an indispensable preliminary to the proper
understanding of his relations to the universe;
and this again resolves itself, in the long run,
into an inquiry into the nature and the closeness
of the ties which connect him with those singular
creatures whose history1 has been sketched in the
preceding pages.

The importance of such an inquiry is indeed
intuitively manifest. Brought face to face with
these blurred copies of himself, the least thought-
ful of men is conscious of a certain shock, due
perhaps, not so much to disgust at the aspect of
what looks like an insulting caricature, as to the
awakening of a sudden and profound mistrust of
time-honoured theories and strongly-rooted pre-
judices regarding his own position in nature, and

1 It will be understood that, in the preceding Essay, I havo
selected for notice from the vast mass of papers which havo
been written upon the man-like Apes, only those which seem to
mo to be of special moment.

n DEVELOPMENT 81

his relations to the under- world of life ; while
that which remains a dim suspicion for the
unthinking, becomes a vast argument, fraught
with the deepest consequences, for all who are
acquainted with the recent progress of the ana-
tomical and physiological sciences.

I now propose briefly to unfold that argument,
and to set forth, in a form intelligible to those
who possess no special acquaintance with ana-
tomical science, the chief facts upon which all con-
clusions respecting the nature and the extent of
the bonds which connect man with the brute
world must be based : I shall then indicate the
one immediate conclusion which, in my judgment,
is justified by those facts, and I shall finally
discuss the bearing of that conclusion upon
the hypotheses which have been entertained re-
specting the Origin of Man.

The facts^ to which I would first direct the
reader's attention, though ignored by many of the
professed instructors of the public mind, are easy
of demonstration and are universally agreed to by
men of science ; while their significance is so
great, that whoso has duly pondered over them
will, I think, find little to startle him in the
other revelations of Biology. I refer to thoso
facts which have been made known by the study ^
of Development.

It is a truth of very wide, if not of universal,
170

82 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

application, that every living creature commences
its existence -under a form different from, and
simpler than, that which it eventually attains.

The oak is a more complex thing than the
little rudimentary plant contained in the acorn ;
the caterpillar is more complex than the egg;
the butterfly than, the caterpillar; and each of
these beings, in passing from its rudimentary to
its perfect condition, runs tt .rough a series of
changes, the sum of which is called its Develop-
ment. In the higher animals these changes are
extremely complicated ; but, within the last half
century, the labours of such men as Von Baer,
Rathke, Reich ert, Bischoff, and Remak, have
almost completely unravelled them, so that the
successive stages of development which are ex-
hibited by a Dog, for example, are now as well
known to the embryologist as are the steps of the
metamorphosis of the silk-worm moth to the
school-boy. It will be useful to consider with
attention the nature and the order of the stages
of canine development, as an example of the
process in the higher animals generally.

The dog, like all animals, save the very lowest
(and further inquiries may not improbably remove
the apparent exception), commences its existence
as an egg : as a body which is, in every sense, as
much an egg as that of a hen, but is devoid
of that accumulation of nutritive matter which
confers upon the bird's egg its exceptional size and

THE DOG S EGG

83

domestic utility; and wants the shell, which
would not only be useless to an animal incubated
within the body of its parent, but would cut it off
from access to the source of that nutriment which
the young creature requires, but which the minute
egg of the mammal does not contain within
Itself.

FIG. 13.— A. Egg of the Dog, with the vitelline mem-
brane burst, so as to give exit to the yelk, the germinal vesicle
(a\ and its included spot (b). B. C. D. E. F. Successive
changes of the yelk indicated in the text. After Bischoff.

The Dog's egg is, in fact, a little spheroidal bag
(Fig. 13), formed of a delicate transparent mem-
brane called the vitelline membrane, and about T^0 th
to T^-Q-th of an inch in diameter. It contains a

84 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

mass of viscid nutritive matter — the yelk — within
which is enclosed a second much more delicate
spheroidal bag, called the germinal vesicle (a).
In this, lastly, lies a more solid rounded body,
termed the germinal spot (b).

The egg, or Ovum is originally formed within
a gland, from which, in due season, it becomes
detached, and passes into the living chamber fitted
for its protection and maintenance during the
protracted process of gestation. Here, when
subjected to the required conditions, this minute
and apparently insignificant particle of living
matter becomes animated by a new and mysteri-
ous activity. The germinal vesicle and spot cease
to be discernible (their precise fate being one of
the yet unsolved problems of embryology), but
the yelk becomes circumferentially indented, as if
an invisible knife had been drawn round it, and
thus appears divided into two hemispheres (Fig.
13, C).

By the repetition of this process in various
planes, these hemispheres become subdivided, so
that four segments are produced (D) ; and these,
in like manner, divide and subdivide again, until
the whole yelk is converted into a mass of
granules, each of which consists of a minute
spheroid of yelk-substance, inclosing a central
particle, the so-called nucleus (F). Nature, by
this process, has attained much the same result
as that which a human artificer arrives at by hia

[I THE CELLULAR EMBRYO 85

operations in a brick-field. She takes the rough
plastic material of the yelk and breaks it up into
well-shaped tolerably even-sized masses — handy
for building up into any part of the living
edifice.

Next, the mass of organic bricks, or cells as
they are technically called, thus formed, acquires
an orderly arrangement, becoming converted into
a hollow spheroid with double walls. Then, upon
one side of this spheroid, appears a thickening, and,
by and bye, in the centre of the area of thickening,
a straight shallow groove (Fig. 14, A) marks the
central line of the edifice which is to be raised, or,
in other words, indicates the position of the middle
line of the body of the future dog. The substance
bounding the groove on each side next rises up
into a fold, the rudiment of the side wall of that
long cavity, which will eventually lodge the spinal
marrow and the brain ; and in the floor of this
chamber appears a solid cellular cord, the so-called
notochord. One end of the enclosed cavity
dilates to form the head (Fig. 14, B), the other
remains narrow, and eventually becomes the tail ;
the side walls of the body are fashioned out of the
downward continuation of the walls of the groove ;
and from them, by and bye, grow out little buds
which, by degrees, assume the shape of limbs.
Watching the fashioning process stage by stage,
one is forcibly reminded of the modeller in clay.
Every part, every organ, is at first, as it wero

86

MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS

II

pinched up rudely, and sketched out in the rough ;
then shaped more accurately ; arid only, at last,
receives the touches which stamp its final
character.

Thus, at length, the young puppy assumes such

FIG. 14. — A. Earliest rudiment of the Dog. B. Kudiment
further advanced, showing the foundations of the head, tail,
and vertebral column. C. The very young puppy, with
attached ends of the yelk-sac and allantois, and invested
in the amnion.

a form as is shown in Fig. 14, C. In this con-
dition it has a disproportionately large head, as
dissimilar to that of a dog as the bud-like limbs
are unlike his legs.

II FCETAL APPENDAGES 87

The remains of the yelk, which have not yet
been applied to the nutrition and growth of the
young animal, are contained in a sac attached to
the rudimentary intestine, and termed the yelk
sac, or umbilical vesicle. Two membranous
bags, intended to subserve respectively the pro-
tection and nutrition of the young creature, have
been developed from the skin and from the under
and hinder surface of the body ; the former, the
so-called amnion, is a sac filled with fluid,
which invests the whole body of the embryo, and
plays the part of a sort of water-bed for it ; the
other, termed the allantois, grows out, loaded
with blood-vessels, from the ventral region, and
eventually applying itself to the walls of the
cavity, in which the developing organism is con-
tained, enables these vessels to become the channel
by which the stream of nutriment, required to
supply the wants of the offspring, is furnished to
it by the parent.

The structure which is developed by the inter-
lacement of the vessels of the offspring with those
of the parent, and by means of which the former
is enabled to receive nourishment and to get rid
of effete matters, is termed the Placenta.

It would be tedious, and it is unnecessary for
my present purpose, to trace the process of
development further ; suffice it to say, that, by a
long and gradual series of changes, the rudiment
here depicted and described, becomes a puppy, is

88 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

born, and then, by still slower and less perceptible
steps, passes into the adult Dog.

There is not much apparent resemblance
between a barn-door Fowl and the Dog who
protects the farm-yard. Nevertheless the student
of development finds, not only that the chick
commences its existence as an egg, primarily
identical, in all essential respects, with that of
the Dog, but that the yelk of this egg undergoes
division — that the primitive groove arises, and
that the contiguous parts of the germ are
fashioned, by precisely similar methods, into a
young chick, which, at one stage of its existence,
is so like the nascent Dog, that ordinary inspection
would hardly distinguish the two.

The history of the development of any other
vertebrate animal, Lizard, Snake, Frog, or Fish, tells
the same story. There is always, to begin with, an
egg having the same essential structure as that
of the Dog : — the yelk of that egg always under-
goes division, or segmentation as it is often
called : the ultimate products of that segmentation
constitute the building materials for the body of
the young animal ; and this is built up round a
primitive groove, in the floor of which a notochord
is developed. Furthermore, there is a period in
which the young of all these animals resemble
one another, not merely in outward form, but in
all essentials of structure, so closely, that the

II DEVELOPMENT OF MAN 89

differences between them are inconsiderable, while,
in their subsequent course they diverge more and
more widely from one another. And it is a general
law, that, the more closely any animals resemble
one another in adult structure, the longer and the
more intimately do their embryos resemble one
another : so that, for example, the embryos of a
Snake and of a Lizard remain like one another
longer than do those of a Snake and of a Bird ;
and the embryo of a Dog and of a Cat remain like
one another for a far longer period than do those
of a Dog and a Bird ; or of a Dog and an Opossum ;
or even than those of a Dog and a Monkey.

Thus the study of development affords a clear
test of closeness of structural affinity, and one
turns with impatience to inquire what results are
yielded by the study of the development of Man.
Is he something apart ? Does he originate in a
totally different way from Dog, Bird, Frog, and
Fish, thus justifying those who assert him to have
no place in nature and no real affinity with the
lower world of animal life ? Or does he originate
in a similar germ, pass through the same slow and
gradually progressive modifications, depend on
the same contrivances for protection and nutrition,
and finally enter the world by the help of the same
mechanism? The reply is not doubtful for a
moment, and has not been doubtful any time these
thirty years. Without question, the mode of origin
and the early stages of the development of man are

90

MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS

II

identical with those of the animals immediately
below him in the scale : — without a doubt, in these
respects, he is far nearer the Apes, than the Apes
are to the Dog.

The Human ovum is about r^t]l of an inch in
diameter, and might be described in the same

FIG. 15. — A. Human ovum (after Kolliker). a. ger-
minal vesicle, b. germinal spot. B. A very early condition-
of Man, with yelk-sac, allantois and amnion (original). C. A
more advanced stage (after Kolliker), compare Fig. 14, C.

terms as that of the Dog, so that I need only refer
to the figure illustrative (15 A) of its structure.
It leaves the organ in which it is formed in a simi-
lar fashion and enters the organic chamber pre-
pared for its reception in the same way, the
conditions of its development being in all respects
the same. It has not yet been possible (and only

II DEVELOPMENT OF MAN 91

by some rare chance can it ever be possible) to
study the human ovum in so early a developmental
stage as that of yelk division, but there is every
reason to conclude that the changes it undergoes
are identical with those exhibited by the ova of
other vertebrated animals ; for the formative
materials of which the rudimentary human body
is composed, in the earliest conditions in which it
has been observed, are the same as those of other
animals. Some of these earliest stages are figured
below and, as will be seen, they are strictly com-
parable to the very early states of the Dog ; the
marvellous correspondence between the two which
is kept up, even for some time, as development
advances, becoming apparent by the simple com-
parison of the figures with those on page 86.

Indeed, it is very long before the body of the
young human being can be readily discriminated
from that of the young puppy ; but, at a tolerably
early period, the two become distinguishable by
the different form of their adjuncts, the yelk-sac
and the allantois. The former, in the Dog, becomes
long and spindle-shaped, while in Man it remains
spherical: the latter, in the Dog, attains an
extremely large size, and the vascular processes
which are developed from it and eventually give
rise to the formation of the placenta (taking root,
as it were, in the parental organism, so as to draw
nourishment therefrom, as the root of a tree
extracts it from the soil) are arranged in an en-

92 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

circling zone, while in Man, the allantois remains
comparatively small, and its vascular rootlets are
eventually restricted to one disk-like spot. Hence,
while the placenta of the Dog is like a girdle, that
of Man has the cake-like form, indicated by the
name of the organ.

But, exactly in those respects in which the
developing Man differs from the Dog, he resembles
the ape, which, like man, has a spheroidal yelk-sac
and a discoidal, sometimes partially lobed, placenta.
So that it is only quite in the later stages of
development that the young human being presents
marked differences from the young ape, while the
latter departs as much from the dog in its devel-
opment, as the man does.

Startling as the last assertion may appear to be,
it is demonstrably true, and it alone appears to
me sufficient to place beyond all doubt the
structural unity of man with the rest of the
animal world, and more particularly and closely
with the apes.

Thus, identical in the physical processes by
which he originates — identical in the early stages
of his formation — identical in the mode of his
nutrition before and after birth, with the animals
which lie immediately below him in the scale —
Man, if his adult and perfect structure be com-
pared with theirs, exhibits, as might be expected,

II THE CLASSIFICATION OF MAN 93

a marvellous likeness of organization. He re-
sembles them as they resemble one another — he
differs from them as they differ from one another.
— And, though these differences and resemblances
cannot be weighed and measured, their value may
be readily estimated ; the scale or standard of
judgment, touching that value being afforded and
expressed by the system of classification of animals
now current among zoologists.

A careful study of the resemblances and differ-
ences presented by animals has, in fact, led
naturalists to arrange them into groups, or
assemblages, all the members of each group
presenting a certain amount of definable resem-
blance, and the number of points of similarity
being smaller as the group is larger and vice versa.
Thus, all creatures which agree only in presenting
the few distinctive marks of animality form the
Kingdom ANIMALIA. The numerous animals
which agree only in possessing the special
characters of Vertebrates form one Sub-kingdom
of this Kingdom. Then the Sub-kingdom
VERTEBRATA is subdivided into the five Classes,
Fishes, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals,
and these into smaller groups called Orders;
these into Families and Genera ; while the
last are finally broken up into the smallest
assemblages, which are distinguished by the
possession of constant, not-sexual, characters.
These ultimate groups are Species.

94 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

Every year tends to bring about a greater
uniformity of opinion throughout the zoological
world as to the limits and characters of these
groups, great and small. At present, for example,
no one has the least doubt regarding the characters
of the classes Mammalia, Aves, or Reptilia ; nor
does the question arise whether any thoroughly
well-known animal should be placed in one class
or the other. Again, there is a very general
agreement respecting the characters and limits of
the orders of Mammals, and as to the animals
which are structurally necessitated to take a place
in one or another order.

No one doubts, for example, that the Sloth and
the Ant-eater, the Kangaroo and the Opossum,
the Tiger and the Badger, the Tapir and the
Rhinoceros, are respectively members of the same
orders. These successive pairs of animals may,
and some do, differ from one another immensely,
in such matters as the proportions and structure
of their limbs ; the number of their dorsal and
lumbar vertebra ; the adaptation of their frames
to climbing, leaping, or running ; the number and
form of their teeth ; and the characters of their
skulls and of the contained brain. But, with all
these differences, they are so closely connected in
all the more important and fundamental characters
of their organization, and so distinctly separated
by these same characters from other animals, that
zoologists find it necessary to group them together

II THE CLASSIFICATION OF MAN 95

as members of one order. And if any new animal
were discovered, and were found to present no
greater difference from the Kangaroo or from the
Opossum, for example, than these animals do from
one another, the zoologist would not only be
logically compelled to rank it in the same order
with these, but he would not think of doing
otherwise.

Bearing this obvious course of zoological
reasoning in mind, let us endeavour for a moment
to disconnect our thinking selves from the mask
of humanity; let us imagine ourselves scientific
Saturnians, if you will, fairly acquainted with
such animals as now inhabit the Earth, and em-
ployed in discussing the relations they bear to a
new and singular " erect and featherless biped,"
which some enterprising traveller, overcoming the
difficulties of space and gravitation, has brought
from that distant planet for our inspection, well
preserved, may be, in a cask of rum. We should
all, at once, agree upon placing him among the
mammalian vertebrates ; and his lower jaw, his
molars, and his brain, would leave no room for
doubting the systematic position of the new genus
among those mammals, whose young are nourished
during gestation by means of a placenta, or what
are called the " placental mammals."

Further, the most superficial study would at
once convince us that, among the orders of
placental mammals, neither the Whales, nor the

96 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

hoofed creatures, nor the Sloths and Ant-eaters,
nor the carnivorous Cats, Dogs, and Bears, still
less the Rodent. Rats and Rabbits, or the Insec-
tivorous Moles and Hedgehogs, or the Bats, could
claim our Homo, as one of themselves.

There would remain then, but one order for
comparison, that of the Apes (using that word in
its broadest sense), and the question for discussion
would narrow itself to this — is Man so different
from any of these Apes that he must form an
order by himself? Or does he differ less from
them than they differ from one another, and
hence must take his place in the same order with
them ?

Being happily free from all real, or imaginary,
personal interest in the results of the inquiry thus
set afoot, we should proceed to weigh the argu-
ments on one side and on the other, with as much
judicial calmness as if the question related to a
new Opossum. We should endeavour to ascer-
tain, without seeking either to magnify or
diminish them, all the characters by which our
new Mammal differed from the Apes ; and if we
found that these were of less structural value than
those which distinguish certain members of the
Ape order from others universally admitted to
be of the same order, we should undoubtedly
place the newly discovered tellurian genus with
them.

I now proceed to detail the facts which seem to

n CLASSIFICATION: GORILLA 97

me to leave us no choice but to adopt the last-
ineDtioned course.

It is quite certain that the Ape which most
nearly approaches man, in the totality of its
organisation, is either the Chimpanzee or the
Gorilla; and as it makes no practical difference,
for the purposes of my present argument, which is
selected for comparison, on the one hand, with Man,
and on the other hand, with the rest of the
Primates,1 1 shall select the latter (so far as its
organisation is known) — as a brute now so
celebrated in prose and verse, that all must have
heard of him, and have formed some conception
of his appearance. I shall take up as many of the
most important points of difference between man
and this remarkable creature, as the space at my
disposal will allow me to discuss, and the necessi-
ties of the argument demand ; and I shall inquire
into the value and magnitude of these differences,
when placed side by side with those which
separate the Gorilla from other animals of the
same order.

In the general proportions of the body and
limbs there is a remarkable difference between
fche Gorilla and Man, which at once strikes the

1 We are not at present thoroughly acquainted with the
brain of the Gorilla, and tli ore fore, in discussing cerebral"
characters, I shall take that of the Chimpanzee as my highest
term among the Apes.

171

98 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

eye. The Gorilla's brain-case is smaller, its trunk
larger, its lower limbs shorter, its upper limbs
longer in proportion than those of Man.

I find that the vertebral column of a full-grown
Gorilla, in the Museum of the Royal College of
Surgeons, measures 27 inches along its anterior
curvature, from the upper edge of the atlas, or
first vertebra of the neck, to the lower extremity
of the sacrum ; that the arm, without the hand, is
31 \ inches long; that the leg, without the foot, is
26 \ inches long ; that the hand is 9 J inches long ;
the foot 11 J inches long.

In other words, taking the length of the spinal
column as 100, the arm equals 115, the leg 96,
the hand 36, and the foot 41.

In the skeleton of a male Bosjesman, in the
same collection, the proportions, by the same
measurement, to the spinal column, taken as 100,
are — the arm 78, the leg 110, the hand 26, and
the foot 32. In a woman of the same race the
arm is 83, and the leg 120, the hand and foot
remaining the same. In a European skeleton I
find the arm to be 80, the leg 117, the hand 26,
the foot 35.

Thus the leg is not so different as it looks at
first sight, in its proportion to the spine in the
Gorilla and in the Man — being very slightly
shorter than the spine in the former, and between
•±s and % longer than the spine in the latter.
The foot is longer and the hand much longer 10

II GORILLA AND OTHER APES 99

the Gorilla ; but the great difference is caused by
the arms, which are very much longer than the
spine in the Gorilla, very much shorter than the
spine in the Man.

The question now arises how are the other
Apes related to the Gorilla in these respects —
taking the length of the spine, measured in the
same way, at 100. In an adult Chimpanzee, the
arm is only 96, the leg 90, the hand 43, the foot
39 — so that the hand and the leg depart more
from the human proportion and the arm less, while
the foot is about the same as in the Gorilla.

In the Orang, the arms are very much longer
than in the Gorilla (122), while the legs are
shorter (88) ; the foot is longer than the hand (52
and 48), and both are much longer in proportion
to the spine.

In the other man-like Apes again, the Gibbons,
these proportions are still further altered; the
length of the arms being to that of the spinal
column as 19 to 11 ; while the legs are also a
third longer than the spinal column, so as to be
longer than in Man, instead of shorter. The hand
is half as long as the spinal column, and the foot,
shorter than the hand, is about yTths of the
length of the spinal column.

Thus Hylobates is as much longer in the arms
than the Gorilla, as the Gorilla is longer in the
arms than Man ; while, on the other hand, it is
as much longer in the legs than the Man, as the

100 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

Man is longer in the legs than the Gorilla, so that
it contains within itself the extremest deviations
from the average length of both pairs of limbs.1

The Mandrill presents a middle condition, the
arms and legs being nearly equal in length, and
both being shorter than the spinal column ; while
hand and foot have nearly the same proportions
to one another and to the spine, as in Man.

In the Spider monkey (Ateles) the leg is longer
than the spine, and the arm than the leg; and,
finally, in that remarkable Lemurine form, the
Indri (Lichanotus), the leg is about as long as the
spinal column, while the arm is not more than \\
of its length ; the hand having rather less and the
foot rather more, than one third the length of the
spinal column.

These examples might be greatly multiplied,
but they suffice to show that, in whatever pro-
portion of its limbs the Gorilla differs from Man,
the other Apes depart still more widely from the
Gorilla and that, consequently, such differences of
proportion can have no ordinal value.

We may next consider the differences presented
by the trunk, consisting of the vertebral column.
or backbone, and the ribs and pelvis, or bony hip--
basin, which are connected with it, in Man and in
the Gorilla respectively.

1 See the figures of the skeletons of four anthropoid apes and
uf man. drawn to scale, p. 76.

II MAN AND GORILLA 101

In Man, in consequence partly of the disposition
of the articular surfaces of the vertebrae, and
largely of the elastic tension of some of the fibrous
bands, or ligaments, which connect these vertebrae
together, the spinal column, as a whole, has an
elegant S-like curvature, being convex forwards
in the neck, concave in the back, convex in the
loins, or lumbar region, and concave again in the
sacral region ; an arrangement which gives much
elasticity to the whole backbone, and diminishes
the jar communicated to the spine, and through
it to the head, by locomotion- in the erect
position.

Furthermore, under ordinary circumstances,
Man has seven vertebrae in his neck, which are
called cervical ; twelve succeed these, bearing ribs
and forming the upper part of the back, whence
they are termed dorsal ; five lie in the loins,
bearing no distinct, or free, ribs, and are called
lumbar ; five, united together into a great bone,
excavated in front, solidly wedged in between the
hip bones, to form the back of the pelvis, and
known by the name of the sacrum, succeed these ;
and finally, three or four little more or less
movable bones, so small as to be insignificant,
constitute the coccyx or rudimentary tail.

In the Gorilla, the vertebral column is similarly
divided into cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and
coccygeal vertebrae, and the total number of
cervical and dorsal vertebrae, taken together, is

102 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS u

the same as in Man ; but the development of a
pair of ribs to the first lumbar vertebra, which is
an exceptional occurrence in Man, is the rule in
the Gorilla ; and hence, as lumbar are distin-
guished from dorsal vertebrae only by the presence
or absence of free ribs, the seventeen "dorso-
lumbar " vertebrae of the Gorilla are divided into
thirteen dorsal and four lumbar, while in Man
they are twelve dorsal and five lumbar.

Not only, however, does Man occasionally
possess thirteen pair of ribs,1 but the Gorilla
sometimes has fourteen pairs, while an Orang-
Utan skeleton in the Museum of the Royal
College of Surgeons has twelve dorsal and five
lumbar vertebrae, as in Man. Cuvier notes the
same number in a Hylobates. On the other hand,
among the lower Apes, many possess twelve
dorsal and six or seven lumbar vertebrae; the
Douroucouli has fourteen dorsal and eight lum-
bar, and a Lemur (Stenops tardigradus) has fifteen
dorsal and nine lumbar vertebrae.

The vertebral column of the Gorilla, as a whole,
differs from that of Man in the less marked char-

1 "More than once," says Peter Camper, "have I met with
more than six lumbar vertebrae in man. . . . Once I found
thirteen ribs and four lumbar vertebras." Fallopius noted thir-
teen pair of ribs and only four lumbar vertebrae ; and Eustachius
once found eleven dorsal vertebras and six lumbar vertebras. —
(Euvres de Pierre Camper, T. 1, p. 42. As Tyson states, his
" Pygmie " had thirteen pair of ribs and five lumbar vertebra.
The question of the curves of the spinal column in the A pea
requires further investigation.

II GORILLA AND OTHER APES 103

acter of its curves, especially in the slighter
convexity of the lumbar region. Nevertheless,
the curves are present, and are quite obvious in
young skeletons of the Gorilla and Chimpanzee
which Lave been prepared without removal of the
ligaments. In young Orangs similarly preserved
on the other hand, the spinal column is either
straight, or even concave forwards, throughout the
lumbar region.

Whether we take these characters then, or such
minor ones as those which are derivable from
the proportional length of the spines of the
cervical vertebrae, and the like, there is no doubt
whatsoever as to the marked difference between
Man and the Gorilla; but there is as little,
that equally marked differences, of the very same
order, obtain between the Gorilla and the lower
Apes.

The Pelvis, or bony girdle of the hips, of Man
is a strikingly human part of his organisation ; the
expanded haunch bones affording support for his
viscera during his habitually erect posture, and
giving space for the attachment of the great
muscles which enable him to assume and to pre-
serve that attitude. In these respects the pelvis
of the Gorilla differs very considerably from his
(Fig. 16). But go no lower than the Gibbon, and
see how vastly more he differs from the Gorilla
than the latter does from Man, even in this struc-
ture. Look at the flat, narrow haunch bones — the

Gibbnn.

FIG. 16. — Front and side views of the bony pelvis of Man,
the Gorilla and Gibbon : reduced from drawings made from
nature, of the same absolute length, by Mr. Waterhouse
H awkina.

II GORILLA AND MAN : SKULL 105

long and narrow passage — the coarse, out>vardly
curved, ischiatic prominences on which the Gibbon
habitually rests, and which are coated by the so-
called " callosities," dense patches of skin, wholly
absent in the Gorilla, in the Chimpanzee, and in
tbe Orang, as in Man !

In the lower Monkeys and in the Lemurs the
difference becomes more striking still, the pelvis
acquiring an altogether quadrupedal character.

But now let us turn to a nobler and more
characteristic organ — that by which the human
frame seems to be, and indeed is, so strongly dis-
tinguished from all others, — I mean the skull.
The differences between a Gorilla's skull and a
Man's are truly immense (Fig. 17). In the former,
the face, formed largely by the massive jaw-bones,
predominates over the brain-case, or cranium
proper : in the latter, the proportions of the two
are reversed. In the Man, the occipital foramen,
through which passes the great nervous cord con-
necting the brain with the nerves of the body, is
placed just behind the centre of the base of the
skull, which thus becomes evenly balanced in the
erect posture ; in the Gorilla, it lies in the posterior
third of that base. In the Man, the surface 01
the skull is comparatively smooth, and the supra-
ciliary ridges or brow prominences usually project
but little — while, in the Gorilla, vast crests are
developed upon the skull, and the brow ridges over-
hang the cavernous orbits, like great penthouses.

106 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

Sections of the skulls, however, show that some
of the apparent defects of the Gorilla's cranium
arise, in fact, not so much from deficiency of brain-
case as from excessive development of the parts of
the face. The cranial cavity is not ill-shaped, and
the forehead is not truly flattened or very retreat-
ing, its really well-formed curve being simply dis-
guised by the mass of bone which is built up
against it (Fig. 17).

But the roofs of the orbits rise more obliquely
into the cranial cavity, thus diminishing the space
for the lower part of the anterior lobes of the
brain, and the absolute capacity of the cranium
is far less than that of Man. So far as I am
aware, no human cranium belonging to an adult
man has yet been observed with a less cubical
capacity than 62 cubic inches, the smallest
cranium observed in any race of men by Morton,
measuring 63 cubic inches ; while, on the other
hand, the most capacious Gorilla skull yet
measured has a content of not more than 34J
cubic inches. Let us assume, for simplicity's
sake, that the lowest Man's skull has twice the
capacity of that of the highest Gorilla.1

1 It has been affirmed that Hindoo crania sometimes contain
as little as 27 ounces of water, which would give a capacity
of about 46 cubic inches. The minimum capacity which I
have assumed above, however, is based upon the valuable tables
published by Professor R. Wagner in his Vorstitdien zu einer
wissenscliaftlichcn MorpJiologie und Physiologie des menschlicken
Gehrins. As the result of the careful weighing of more than
900 human brains, Professor Wagner states that one-half

n CRANIAL CAPACITIES 107

No doubt, this is a very striking difference, but
it loses much of its apparent systematic value,
when viewed by the light of certain other
equally indubitable facts respecting cranial
capacities.

The first of these is, that the difference in the
volume of the cranial cavity of different races of
mankind is far greater, absolutely, than that
between the lowest Man and the highest Ape,
while, relatively, it is about the same. For the
largest human skull measured by Morton con-
tained 114 cubic inches, that is to say, had very
nearly double the capacity of the smallest ; while
its absolute preponderance, of 52 cubic inches — is
far greater than that by which the lowest adult

\veighed between 1200 and 1400 grammes, and that about two-
ninths, consisting for the most part of male brains, exceed 1400
grammes. The lightest brain of an adult male, with sound
mental faculties, recorded by Wagner, weighed 1020 grammes.
As a gramme equals 15*4 grains, and a cubic inch of water con-
tains 252 '4 grains, this is equivalent to 62 cubic inches of
water ; so that as brain is heavier than water, we are perfectly
safe against erring on the side of diminution in taking this as
the smallest capacity of any adult male human brain. The only
adult male brain, weighing as little as 970 grammes, is that of
an idiot ; but the brain of an adult woman, against the sound-
ness of whose faculties nothing appears, weighed as little as 907
grammes (55 '3 cubic inches of water) ; and Reid gives an adult
female brain of still smaller capacity. The heaviest brain (1872
grammes, or about 115 cubic inches) was, however, that of a
woman ; next to it comes the brain of Cuvier (1861 grammes),
then Byron (1807 grammes), and then an insane person (1783
grammes). The lightest adult brain recorded (720 grammes) was
that of an idiotic female. The brains of five children, four
years old, weighed between 1275 and 992 grammes. So that it
may be safely said, that an average European child of four
years old has a brain twice as large as that of an adult Gorilla.

108 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

male human cranium surpasses the largest of
the Gorillas (62 — 34£ = 27£). Secondly, the
adult crania of Gorillas which have as yet been
measured differ among themselves by nearly one-
third, the maximum capacity being 34'5 cubic
inches, the minimum 24 cubic inches ; and, thirdly,
after making all due allowance for difference of
size, the cranial capacities of some of the lower
Apes fall nearly as much, relatively, below those
of the higher Apes as the latter fall below Man.

Thus, even in the important matter of cranial
capacity, Men differ more widely from one an-
other than they do from the Apes ; while the
• lowest Apes differ as much, in proportion, from the
highest, as the latter does from Man. The last
proposition is still better illustrated by the study
of the modifications which other parts of the
cranium undergo in the Simian series.

It is the large proportional size of the facial
bones and the great projection of the jaws which
confers upon the Gorilla's skull its small facial
angle and brutal character.

But if we consider the proportional size of the
facial bones to the skull proper only, the little
Chrysothrix (Fig. 17) differs very widely from the
Gorilla, and, in the same way, as Man does ; while
the Baboons (Cynoceplialus, Fig. 17) exaggerate
the gross proportions of the muzzle of the great
Anthropoid, so that its visage looks mild and
human by comparison with theirs. The difference

AUSTHAL.IAN.

ClIKYSOTHRIX.

CYJVTOCEPHAL.US

LEMUR.

FIG. 17. — Sections of the skulls of Man and various Apes,

110 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

drawn so as to give the cerebral cavity the same length in each
case, thereby displaying the varying proportions of the facial
bones. The line b indicates the plane of the tentorium, which
separates the cerebrum from the cerebellum ; d, the axis of the
occipital outlet of the skull. The extent of cerebral cavity
behind c, which is a perpendicular erected on b at the point
where the tentorium is attached posteriorly, indicates the degree
to which the cerebrum overlaps the cerebellum — the space
occupied by which is roughly indicated by the dark shading.
In comparing these diagrams, it must be recollected, that
figures on so small a scale as these simply exemplify the state-
ments in the text, the proof of which, is to be found in the
objects themselves.

between the Gorilla and the Baboon is even greater
than it appears at first sight ; for the great facial
mass of the former is largely due to a downward
development of the jaws ; an essentially human
character, superadded upon that almost purely
forward, essentially brutal, development of the
same parts which characterises the Baboon, and
yet more remarkably distinguishes the Lemur.

Similarly, the occipital foramen of Mycetes (Fig.
17), and still more of the Lemurs, is situated com-
pletely in the posterior face of the skull, or as
much further back than that of the Gorilla, as that
of the Gorilla is further back than that of Man ;
while, as if to render patent the futility of the
attempt to base any broad classificatory distinction
on such a character, the same group of Platyrhine,
or American monkeys, to which the Mycetes belongs,
contains the Chrysothrix, whose occipital foramen
is situated far more forward than in any other ape,
and nearly approaches the position it holds in
Man.

[I TEETH: MEN AND APES 111

Again, the Orang's skull is as devoid of excess-
ively developed supraciliary prominences as a
Man's, though some varieties exhibit great crests
elsewhere (Seep. 25) ; and in some of the Cebine
apes and in the Chrysothrix, the cranium is as
smooth and rounded as that of Man himself.

What is true of these leading characteristics of
the skull, holds good, as may be imagined, of all
minor features ; so that for every constant differ-
ence between the Gorilla's skull and the Man's, a
similar constant difference of the same order (that
is to say, consisting in excess or defect of the same
quality) may be found between the Gorilla's skull
and that of some other ape. So that, for the skull,
no less than for the skeleton in general, the propo-
sition holds good, that the differences between Man
and the Gorilla are of smaller value than those
between the Gorilla and some other Apes.

In connection with the skull, I may speak of the
teeth — organs which have a peculiar classificatory
value, and whose resemblances and differences of
number, form, and succession, taken as a whole, are
usually regarded as more trustworthy indicators of
affinity than any others.

Man is provided with two sets of teeth — milk
teeth and permanent teeth. The former consist of
four incisors, or cutting teeth ; two canines, or eye-
teeth ; and four molars or grinders, in each jaw,
making twenty in all. The latter (Fig. 18) com-

112 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

prise four incisors, two canines, four small grinders,
called premolars or false molars, and six large
grinders, or true molars in each jaw — making thirty-
two in all. The internal incisors are larger than
the external pair, in the upper jaw, smaller than
the external pair, in the lower jaw. The crowns of
the upper molars exhibit four cusps, or blunt-
pointed elevations, and a ridge crosses the crown
obliquely, from the inner, anterior cusp to the
outer, posterior cusp (Fig. 18 m2). The anterior
lower molars have five cusps, three external and
two internal. The premolars have two cusps, one
internal and one external, of which the outer is the
higher.

In all these respects the dentition of the Gorilla
may be described in the same terms as that of Man ;
but in other matters it exhibits many and import-
ant differences (Fig. 18).

Thus the teeth of man constitute a regular and
even series — without any break and without any
marked projection of one tooth above the level of
the rest ; a peculiarity which, as Cuvier long ago
showed, is shared by no other mammal save one —
as different a creature from man as can well be
imagined — namely, the long extinct Anoplotherium,
The teeth of the Gorilla, on the contrary, exhibit
a break, or interval, termed the diastema, in both
jaws : in front of the eye-tooth, or between it and
the outer incisor, in the upper jaw ; behind the eye-
tooth, or between it arid the front false molar, in the

Man.

Gcrilla.

CJieircmys,

FIG. 18. — Lateral views, of the same length, of the upper
jaws of various Primates, i, incisors ; c, canines ; pmt pre-
172

114 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

molars ; m, molars. A line is drawn through the first molar of
Man, Gorilla, Cynocephalus, and Celus, and the grinding
surface of the second molar is shown in each, its anterior and
internal angle being just above the m of m2.

lower jaw. Into this break in the series, in each
jaw, fits the canine of the opposite jaw ; the size of
the eye-tooth in the Gorilla being so great that it
projects, like a tusk, far beyond the general level
of the other teeth. The roots of the false molar
teeth of the Gorilla, again, are more complex
than in Man, and the proportional size of the
molars is different. The Gorilla has the crown
of the hindmost grinder of the lower jaw more
complex, and the order of eruption of the per-
manent teeth is different ; the permanent canines
making their appearance before the second and
third molars in Man, and after them in the Gorilla.

Thus, while the teeth of the Gorilla closely
resemble those of Man in number, kind, and in
the general pattern of their crowns, they exhibit
marked differences from those of Man in secondary
respects, such as relative size, number of fangs,
and order of appearance.

But, if the teeth of the Gorilla be compared
with those of an Ape, no further removed from it
than a Cynocephahcs, or Baboon, it will be found
that differences and resemblances of the same
order are easily observable ; but that many of the
points in which the Gorilla resembles Man are
those in which it differs from the Baboon ; while

II MAN AND APES: TEETH 115

various respects in which it differs from Mail are
exaggerated in the Cynocephalus. The number
and the nature of the teeth remain the same in
the Baboon as in the Gorilla and in Man. But
the pattern of the Baboon's upper molars is quite
different from that described above (Fig. 18), the
canines are proportionally longer and more knife-
like ; the anterior premolar in the lower jaw is
specially modified ; the posterior molar of the
lower jaw is still larger and more complex than in
the Gorilla.

Passing from the old-world Apes to those of the
new world, we meet with a change of much
greater importance than any of these. In such a
genus as Cebus, for example (Fig. 18), it will be
found that while in some secondary points, such
as the projection of the canines and the diastema,
the resemblance to the great ape is preserved ; in
other and most important respects, the dentition
is extremely different. Instead of 20 teeth in the
milk set, there are 24 : instead of 32 teeth in the
permanent set, there are 36, the false molars being
increased from eight to twelve. And in form, the
crowns of the molars are very unlike those of the
Gorilla, and differ far more widely from the human
pattern.

The Marmosets, on the other hand, exhibit the
same number of teeth as Man and the Gorilla ;
but, notwithstanding this, their dentition is very
different, for they have four more false molars,

116 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

like the other American monkeys — but as they
have four fewer true molars, the total remains the
same. And passing from the American apes to
the Lemurs, the dentition becomes still more
completely and essentially different from that of
the Gorilla. The incisors begin to vary both in
number and in form. The molars acquire, more
and more, a many-pointed, insectivorous character,
and in one Genus, the Aye-Aye (Cheiromys), the
canines disappear, and the teeth completely simu-
late those of a Eodent (Fig. 18).

Hence it is obvious that, greatly as the denti-*
tion of the highest Ape differs from that of Man,
it differs far more widely from that of the lower
and lowest Apes.

Whatever part of the animal fabric — whatever
series of muscles, whatever viscera might be
selected for comparison — the result would be the
same — the lower Apes and the Gorilla would
differ more than the Gorilla and the Man. I can-
not attempt in this place to follow out all these
comparisons in detail, and indeed it is unnecessary
I should do so. But certain real, or supposed,
structural distinctions -between man and the apes
remain, upon which so much stress has been laid,
that they require careful consideration, in order
that the true value may be assigned to those
which are real, and the emptiness of those which
are fictitious may be exposed. I refer to the

II MAN AND APES: HAND AND BRAIN 117

characters of the hand, the foot, and the
brain.

Man has been defined as the only animal
possessed of two hands terminating his fore limbs,
and of two feet ending his hind limbs, while it has
been said that all the apes possess four hands;
and he has been affirmed to differ fundamentally
from all the apes in the characters of his brain,
which alone, it has been strangely asserted and
reasserted, exhibits the structures known to
anatomists as the posterior lobe, the posterior
cornu of the lateral ventricle, and the hippocampus
minor.

That the former proposition should have gained
general acceptance is not surprising — indeed, at
first sight, appearances are much in its favour :
but, as for the second, one can only admire the
surpassing courage of its enunciator, seeing that
it is an innovation which is not only opposed to
generally and justly accepted doctrines, but which
is directly negatived by the testimony of all
original inquirers, who have specially investigated
the matter : and that it neither has been, nor can
be, supported by a single anatomical preparation.
It would, in fact, be unworthy of serious refutation,
except for the general and natural belief that
deliberate and reiterated assertions must have
some foundation.

Before we can discuss the first point with

118 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

advantage we must consider with some attention,
and compare together, the structure of the human
hand and that of the human foot, so that we may
have distinct and clear ideas of what constitutes a
hand and what a foot.

The external form of the human hand is familiar
enough to every one. It consists of a stout wrist
followed by a broad palm, formed of flesh, and
tendons, and skin, binding together four bones,
and dividing into four long and flexible digits, or
fingers, each of which bears on the back of its
last joint a broad and flattened nail. The longest
cleft between any two digits is rather less than
half as long as the hand. From the outer side of
the base of the palm a stout digit goes off, having
only two joints instead of three ; so short, that it
only reaches to a little beyond the middle of the
first joint of the finger next it ; and further re-
markable by its great mobility, in consequence of
which it can be directed outwards, almost at a
right angle to the rest. This digit is called the
" pollex" or thumb ; and, like the others, it bears
a flat nail upon the back of its terminal joint. In
consequence of the proportions and mobility of
the thumb, it is what is termed " opposable " ; in
other words, its extremity can, with the greatest
ease, be brought into contact with the extremities
of any of the fingers ; a property upon which the
possibility of our carrying into effect the concep-
tions of the mind so largely depends.

II MAN AND APES: HAND AND FOOT 119

The external form of the foot differs widely
from that of the hand ; and yet, when closely
compared, the two present some singular re-
semblances. Thus the ankle corresponds in a
manner with the wrist; the sole with the palm ;
the toes with the fingers ; the great toe with the
thumb. But the toes, or digits of the foot, are
far shorter in proportion than the digits of the
hand, and are less moveable, the want of mobility
being most striking in the great toe — which, again,
is very much larger in proportion to the other
toes than the thumb to the fingers. In consider-
ing this point, however, it must not be forgotten
that the civilized great toe, confined and cramped
from childhood upwards, is seen to a great dis-
advantage, and that in uncivilized and barefooted
people it retains a great amount of mobility, and
even some sort of opposability. The Chinese
boatmen are said to be able to pull an oar ; the
artisans of Bengal to weave, and the Carajas to
steal fishhooks by its help ; though, after all, it
must be recollected that the structure of its joints
and the arrangement of its bones, necessarily
render its prehensile action far less perfect than
that of the thumb.

But to gain a precise conception of the re-
semblances and differences of the hand and foot,
and of the distinctive characters of each, we must
look below the skin, and compare the bony frame-
work and its motor apparatus in each (Fig. 19).

Hand.

Feet.

FIG. 19. — The skeleton of the Hand and Foot of Man
reduced from Dr. Carter's drawings in Gray's Anatomy. The
hand is drawn to a larger scale than the foot. The line a a in
the, hand indicates the boundary between the carpus and the
metacarpus ; b b that between the latter and the proximal
phalanges ; c c marks the ends of the distal phalanges. The
line a' a' in the foot indicates the boundary between the tarsus
and metatarsus ; b' b' marks that between the metatarsus and
the proximal phalanges ; and c' c' bounds the ends of the distal
phalanges ; ca, the calcaneum ; ae, the astragalus ; sct the
scaphoid bone in the tarsus.

n MAN AND APES: HAND AND FOOT 121

The skeleton of the hand exhibits, in the region
which we term the wrist, and which is technically
called the carpus — two rows of closely fitted
polygonal bones, four in each row, which are
tolerably equal in size. The bones of the first
row with the bones of the forearm, form the wrist
joint, and are arranged side by side, no one greatly
exceeding or overlapping the rest.

Three of the bones of the second row of the
carpus bear the four long bones which support the
palm of the hand. The fifth bone of the same
character is articulated in a much more free and
moveable manner than the others, with its carpal
bone, and forms the base of the thumb. These
are called metacarpal bones, and they carry the
phalanges, or bones of the digits, of which there
are two in the thumb, and three in each of the
fingers.

The skeleton of the foot is very like that of the
hand in some respects. Thus there are three
phalanges in each of the lesser toes, and only two
in the great toe, which answers to the thumb.
There is a long bone, termed metatarsal, answering
to the metacarpal, for each digit ; and the tarsus
which corresponds with the carpus, presents four
short polygonal bones in a row, which correspond
very closely with the four carpal bones of the
second row of the hand. In other respects the
foot differs very widely from the hand. Thus the
great toe is the longest digit but one ; and its

122 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

metatarsal is far less moveably articulated with
the tarsus than the metacarpal of the thumb with
the carpus. But a far more important distinction
lies in the fact that, instead of four more tarsal
bones there are only three ; and, that these three
are not arranged side by side, or in one row. One
of them, the os calcis or heel bone (ca), lies ex-
ternally, and sends back the large projecting heel ;
another, the astragalus (as), rests on this by one
face, and by another, forms, with the bones of the
leg, the ankle joint ; while a third face, directed
forwards, is separated from the three inner tarsal
bones of the row next the metatarsus by a bone
called the scaphoid (sc).

Thus there is a fundamental difference in the
structure of the foot and the hand, observable
when the carpus and the tarsus are contrasted :
and there are differences of degree noticeable when
the proportions and the mobility of the meta-
carpals and metatarsals, with their respective
digits, are compared together.

The same two classes of differences become
obvious when the muscles of the hand are com-
pared with those of the foot.

Three principal sets of muscles, called '•' flexors/'
bend the fingers and thumb, as in clenching the
fist, and three sets, — the extensors — extend them,
as in straightening the fingers. These muscles
are all "long muscles"; that is to say, the fleshy
part of each, lying in and being fixed to the bones

II MAN AND APES: HAND AND FOOT 123

of the arm, is, at the other end, continued into
tendons, or rounded cords, which pass into the
hand, and are ultimately fixed to the bones which
are to be moved. Thus, when the fingers are
bent, the fleshy parts of the flexors of the fingers,
placed in the arm, contract, in virtue of their
peculiar endowment as muscles ; and pulling the
tendinous cords, connecting with their ends, cause
them to pull down the bones of the fingers towards
the palm.

Not only are the principal flexors of the fingers
and of the thumb long muscles, but they remain
quite distinct from one another throughout their
whole length.

In the foot, there are also three principal flexor
muscles of the digits or toes, and three principal
extensors ; but one extensor and one flexor are
short muscles ; that is to say, their fleshy parts
are not situated in the leg (which corresponds
with the arm), but in the back and in the sole of
the foot — regions which correspond with the back
and the palm of the hand.

Again, the tendons of the long flexor of the toes,
and of the long flexor of the great toe, when they
reach the sole of the foot, do not remain distinct
from one another, as the flexors in the palm of the
hand do, but they become united and commingled
in a very curious manner — while their united
tendons receive an accessory muscle connected
with the heel-bone.

124 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

But perhaps the most absolutely distinctive
character about the muscles of the foot is the ex-
istence of what is termed the peronceus longus, a
long muscle fixed to the outer bone of the leg, and
sending its tendon to the outer ankle, behind and
below which it passes, and then crosses the foot
obliquely to be attached to the base of the great
toe. No muscle in the hand exactly corresponds
with this, which is eminently a foot muscle.

To resume — the foot of man is distinguished
from his hand by the following absolute anatomi-
cal differences : —

1. By the arrangement of the tarsal bones.

2. By having a short flexor and a short ex-

tensor muscle of the digits.
•3. By possessing the muscle termed peronceus

longus.

And if we desire to ascertain whether the
terminal division of a limb, in other Primates, is
to be called a foot or a hand, it is by the presence
or absence of these characters that we must be
guided, and not by the mere proportions and
greater or lesser mobility of the great toe, which
may vary indefinitely without any fundamental
alteration in the structure of the foot.

Keeping these considerations in mind, let us
now turn to the limbs of the Gorilla. The ter-
minal division of the fore limb presents no diffi-
culty— bone for bone and muscle for muscle, are

n THE PREHENSILE FOOT 125

found to be arranged essentially as in man, or
with such minor differences as are found as
varieties in man. The Gorilla's hand is clumsier,
heavier, and has a thumb somewhat shorter in
proportion than that of man ; but no one has ever
doubted it being a true hand.

At first sight, the termination of the hind limb
of the Gorilla looks very hand-like, and as it is
still more so in many of the lower apes, it is not
wonderful that the appellation " Quadrumana," or
four-handed creatures, adopted from the older
anatomists l by Blumenbach, and unfortunately
rendered current by Cuvier, should have gained
such wide acceptance as a name for the Simian
group. But the most cursory anatomical investi-
gation at once proves that the resemblance of the
so-called " hind hand " to a true hand, is only
skin deep, and that, in all essential respects, the
hind limb of the Gorilla is as truly terminated

1 In speaking of the foot of his ' ' Pygmie, " Tyson remarks,
p. 13:—

"But this part in the formation and in its function too,
being liker a Hand than a Foot : for the distinguishing this
sort of animals from others, I have thought whether it might
not be reckoned and called rather Quadru-manus than Quad-
rupes, i.e. a four-handed rather than a four-footed animal."

As this passage was published in 1699, M. I. G. St. Hilaireis
clearly in error in ascribing the invention of the term " quad-
rumanous" to Buff on, though "birnanous" may belong to him.
Tyson uses " Quadrumanus " in several places, as at p. 91. . . .
" Our Pygmie is no Man, nor yet the common Ape, but a sort
of Animal between both ; and though a Biped, yet of the
Qvadrumanw-ttnd, : though some Men too have been observed
to use their Feet like Hands as I have seen several."

126 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

by a foot as that of man. The tarsal bones, in all
important circumstances of number, disposition,
and form, resemble those of man (Fig. 20). The
metatarsals and digits, on the other hand, are
proportionally longer and more slender, while
the great toe is not only proportionally shorter
and weaker, but its metatarsal bone is united by
a more moveable joint with the tarsus. At the
same time, the foot is set more obliquely upon the
leg than in man.

As to the muscles, there is a short flexor, a
short extensor, and a peronceus longus, while the
tendons of the long flexors of the great toe and of
the other toes are united together and with an
accessory fleshy bundle.

The hind limb of the Gorilla, therefore, ends in
a true foot, with a very moveable great toe. It is
a prehensile foot, indeed, but is in no sense a
hand ; it is a foot which differs from that of man
not in any fundamental character, but in mere
proportions, in the degree of mobility, and in the
secondary arrangement of its parts.

It must not be supposed, however, because I
speak of these differences as not fundamental, that
I wish to underrate their value. They are im-
portant enough in their way, the structure of the
foot being in strict correlation with that of the
rest of the organism in each case. Nor can it be
doubted that the greater division of physiological
labour in Man, so that the function of support is

II

APES: HAND AND FOOT 127

thrown wholly on the leg and foot, is an advance
in organization of very great moment to him ; but, 7
after all, regarded anatomically, the resemblances
between the foot of Man and the foot of the
Gorilla are far more striking and important than
the differences.

I have dwelt upon this point at length, because
it is one regarding which much delusion prevails ;
but I might have passed it over without detriment
to my argument, which only requires me to show
that, be the differences between the hand and foot
of Man and those of the Gorilla what they may — the
differences between those of the Gorilla, and those
of the lower Apes are much greater.

It is not necessary to descend lower in the scale
than the Orang for conclusive evidence on this
head.

The thumb of the Orang differs more from that
of the Gorilla than the thumb of the Gorilla differs
from that of Man, not only by its shortness, but
by the absence of any special long flexor muscle.
The carpus of the Orang, like that of most lower
apes, contains nine bones, while in the Gorilla, as
in Man and the Chimpanzee, there are only
eight.

The Orang's foot (Fig. 20) is still more aber-
rant ; its very long toes and short tarsus, short
great toe, short and raised heel, great obliquity of
articulation with the leg, and absence of a long
flexor tendon to the great toe, separating it far

128

MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS

more widely from the foot of the Gorilla than the
latter is separated from that of Man.

But, in some of the lower apes, the hand and

Man

FIG. 20. — Foot of Man, Gorilla, and Orang-Utan of the same
absolute length, to show the differences in proportion of each.
Letters as in Fig. 19. Reduced from original drawings by Mr.
Waterhouse Hawkins.

foot diverge still more from those of the Gorilla,
than they do in the Orang. The thumb ceases to
be opposable in the American monkeys ; is reduced

n APES: HAND AND FOOT 129

to a mere rudiment covered by the skin in the
Spider Monkey; and is directed forwards and
armed with a curved claw like the other digits, in
the Marmosets — so that, in all these cases, there
can be no doubt but that the hand is more differ-
ent from that of the Gorilla than the Gorilla's
hand is from Man's.

And as to the foot, the great toe of the Marmo-
set is still more insignificant in proportion than
that of the Orang — while in the Lemurs it is very
large, and as completely thumb-like and opposable
as in the Gorilla — but in these animals the second
toe is often irregularly modified, and in some
species the two principal bones of the tarsus, the
astragalus and the os calcis, are so immensely
elongated as to render the foot, so far, totally un-
like that of any other mammal.

So with regard to the muscles. The short
flexor of the toes of the Gorilla differs from that
of Man by the circumstance that one slip of the
muscle is attached, not to the heel bone, but to
the tendons of the long flexors. The lower Apes
depart from the Gorilla by an exaggeration of the
same character, two, three, or more, slips becoming
fixed to the long flexor tendons — or by a multipli-
cation of the slips. — Again, the Gorilla differs
slightly from Man in the mode of interlacing of the
long flexor tendons : and the lower apes differ from
the Gorilla in exhibiting yet other, sometimes
very complex, arrangements of the same parts, and
173

130 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

occasionally in the absence of the accessory fleshy
bundle.

Throughout all these modifications it must be
recollected that the foot loses no one of its essen-
tial characters. Every Monkey and Lemur ex-
hibits the characteristic arrangement of tarsal
bones, possesses a short flexor and short extensor
muscle, and a peronceus longus. Varied as the
proportions and appearance of the organ may be,
the terminal division of the hind limb remains,
in plan and principle of construction, a foot, and
never, in those respects, can be confounded with a
hand.

Hardly any part of the bodily frame, then, could
be found better calculated to illustrate the truth
that the structural differences between Man and
the highest Ape are of less value than those
between the highest and the lower Apes, than the
hand or the foot ; and yet, perhaps, there is one
organ the study of which enforces the same con-
clusion in a still more striking manner — and that
is the Brain.

But before entering upon the precise question
of the amount of difference between the Ape's
brain and that of Man, it is necessary that we
should clearly understand what constitutes a
great, and what a small difference in cerebral
structure ; and we shall be best enabled to do this
by a brief study of the chief modifications which the
brain exhibits in the series of vertebrate animals.

El VERTEBRATA : BRAIXS 131

The brain of a fish is very small, compared with
the spinal cord into which it is continued, and
with the nerves which come off from it : of the
segments of which it is composed — the olfactory
lobes, the cerebral hemispheres, and the succeed-
ing divisions — no one predominates so much over
the rest as to obscure or cover them; and the so-
called optic lobes are, frequently, the largest
masses of all. In Reptiles, the mass of the brain,
relatively to the spinal cord, increases and the
cerebral hemispheres begin to predominate over
the other parts ; while in Birds this predominance
is still more marked. The brain of the lowest
Mammals, such as the duck-billed Platypus and
the Opossums and Kangaroos, exhibits a still
more definite advance in the same direction. The
cerebral hemispheres have now so much increased
in size as, more or less, to hide the representatives
of the optic lobes, which remain comparatively
small, so that the brain of a Marsupial is extremely
different from that of a Bird, Reptile, or Fish. A
step higher in the scale, among the placental
Mammals, the structure of the brain acquires a
vast modification — not that it appears much
altered externally, in a Rat or in a Rabbit, from
what it is in a Marsupial — nor that the proportions
of its parts are much changed, but an apparently
new structure is found between the cerebral
hemispheres, connecting them together, as what is
called the " great commissure " or " corpus

132 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

callosum." The subject requires careful re-in-
vestigation, but if the currently received state-
ments are correct, the appearance of the "corpus
callosum" in the placental mammals is the
greatest and most sudden Codification exhibited
by the brain in the whole series of vertebrated
animals — it is the greatest leap anywhere made
by Nature in her brain work. For the two halves
of the brain being once thus knit together, the
progress of cerebral complexity is traceable through
a complete series of steps from the lowest Rodent,
or Insectivore, to Man ; and that complexity con-
sists, chiefly, in the disproportionate development
of the cerebral hemispheres and of the cerebellum,
but especially of the former, in respect to the
other parts of the brain.

In the lower placental mammals, the cerebra.
hemispheres leave the proper upper and posterior
face of the cerebellum completely visible, when
the brain is viewed from above ; but, in the higher
forms, the hinder part of each hemisphere, sepa-
rated only by the tentorium (p. 137) from the
anterior face of the cerebellum, inclines backwards
and downwards, and grows out, as the so-called
" posterior lobe," so as at length to overlap and
hi.le the cerebellum. In all Mammals, each
cerebral hemisphere contains a cavity which is
termed the "ventricle"; and as this ventricle is
prolonged, on the one hand, forwards, and on the
other downwards, into the substance of the hemi-

U MAMMALIA: BRAINS 133

sphere, it is said to have two horns or "cormia,"
an "anterior cornu," and a "descending cornu."
When the posterior lobe is well developed, a third
prolongation of the ventricular cavity extends into
it, and is called the " posterior cornu."

In the lower and smaller forms of placental
Mammals the surface of the cerebral hemispheres
is either smooth or evenly rounded, or exhibits a
very few grooves, which are technically termed
" sulci," separating ridges or " convolutions " of the
substance of the brain ; and the smaller species of
all orders tend to a similar smoothness of brain.
But, in the higher orders, and especially the larger
members of these orders, the grooves, or sulci,
become extremely numerous, and the intermediate
convolutions proportionately more complicated in
their meanderings, until, in the Elephant, the
Porpoise, the higher Apes, and Man, the cerebral
surface appears a perfect labyrinth of tortuous
foldings.

Where a posterior lobe exists and presents its
customary cavity — the posterior cornu — it com-
monly happens that a particular sulcus appears
upon the inner and under surface of the lobe,
parallel with and beneath the floor of the cornu —
which is, as it were, arched over the roof of the
sulcus. It is as if the groove had been formed by
indenting the floor of the posterior horn from with-
out with a blunt instrument, so that the floor
should rise as a convex eminence. Now thia

134 MAN AND TEE LOWER ANIMALS n

eminence is what has been termed the " Hippo-
campus minor ;" the " Hippocampus major " being
a larger eminence in the floor of the descending
cornu. What may be the functional importance
of either of these structures we know not.

As if to demonstrate, by a striking example, the
impossibility of erecting any cerebral barrier be-
tween man and the apes, Nature has provided us,
in the latter animals, with an almost complete
series of gradations from brains little higher than
that of a Rodent, to brains little lower than that
of Man. And it is a remarkable circumstance,
that though, so far as our present knowledge
extends, there is one true structural break in the
series of forms of Simian brains, this hiatus does
not lie between Man and the man-like apes, but
between the lower and the lowest Simians ; or, in
other words, between the old and new world apes
and monkeys, and the Lemurs. Every Lemur
which has yet been examined, in fact, has its cere-
bellum partially visible from above, and its poste-
rior lobe, with the contained posterior cornu and
hippocampus minor, more or less rudimentary.
Every Marmoset, American monkey, old world
monkey, Baboon, or Man-like ape, on the contrary,
has its cerebellum entirely hidden, posteriorly,
by the cerebral lobes, and possesses a large pos-
terior cornu, with a well-developed hippocampus
minor.

II THE POSTERIOR LOBES 135

In many of these creatures, such as the Sairniri
(Chrysolhrix), the cerebral lobes overlap and
extend much further behind the cerebellum, in
proportion, than they do in man (Fig. 17) — and it
is quite certain that, in all, the cerebellum is com-
pletely covered behind, by well developed posterior
lobes. The fact can be verified by every one who
possesses the skull of any old or new world
monkey. For, inasmuch as the brain in all mam-
mals completely fills the cranial cavity, it is
obvious that a cast of the interior of the skull
will reproduce the general form of the brain, at any
rate with such minute and, for the present.purpose,
utterly unimportant differences as may result from
the absence of the enveloping membranes of the
brain in the dry skull. But if such a cast be made
in plaster, and compared with .a similar cast of the
interior of a human skull, it will be obvious that
the cast of the cerebral chamber, representing the
cerebrum of the ape, as completely covers over and
overlaps the cast of the cerebellar chamber, repre-
senting the cerebellum, as it does in the man
(Fig. 21). A careless observer, forgetting that a
soft structure like the brain loses its proper shape
the moment it is taken out of the skull, may
indeed mistake the uncovered condition of the
cerebellum of an extracted and distorted brain for
the natural relations of the parts ; but his error
must become patent even to himself if he try to
replace the brain within the cranial chamber. To

B

FIG. 21. — Drawings of the internal casts of a Man's and of a
Chimpanzee's skull, of the same absolute length, and placed in
corresponding positions, A. Cerebrum ; B. Cerebellum. The
former drawing is taken from a cast in the Museum of the
Royal College of Surgeons, the latter from the photograph of
the cast of a Chimpanzee's skull, which illustrates the paper by
Mr. Marshall "On the Brain of the Chimpanzee" in the

II

THE POSTERIOR LOBES 137

Natural History Review for July, 1861. The sharper definition
of the lower edge of the cast of the cerebral chamber in the
Chimpanzee arises from the circumstance that the tentorium
remained in that skull and not in the Man's. The cast more
accurately represents the brain in the Chimpanzee than in the
Man ; and the great backward projection of the posterior lobes
of the cerebrum of the ^former, beyond the cerebellum, is
conspicuous.

suppose that the cerebellum of an ape is naturally
uncovered behind is a miscomprehension com-
parable only to that of one who should imagine
that a man's lungs always occupy but a small
portion of the thoracic cavity, because they do
so when the chest is opened, and their elasticity
is no longer neutralized by the pressure of the air.

And the error is the less excusable, as it must
become apparent to every one who examines a
section of the skull of any ape above a Lemur,
without taking the trouble to make a cast of it.
For there is a very marked groove in every such
skull, as in the human skull — which indicates the
line of attachment of what is termed the tentorium
— a sort of parchment-like shelf, or partition,
which, in the recent state, is interposed between
the cerebrum and cerebellum, and prevents the
former from pressing upon the latter. (See Fig. 17.)

This groove, therefore, indicates the line of
separation between that part of the cranial cavity
which contains the cerebrum, and that which
contains the cerebellum ; and as the brain exactly
fills the cavity of the skull, it is obvious that the
relations of these two parts of the cranial cavity

138 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS II

at once informs us of the relations of their con-
tents. Now in man, in all the old world, and in
all the new world Simise, with one exception, when
the face is directed forwards, this line of attachment
of the tentorium, or impression for the lateral
sinus, as it is technically called, is nearly hori-
zontal, and the cerebral chamber invariably over-
laps or projects behind the cerebellar chamber.
In the Howler Monkey or Mycetes (see Fig. 17),
the line passes obliquely upwards and backwards,
and the cerebral overlap is almost nil ; while in
the Lemurs, as in the lower mammals, the line is
much more inclined in the same direction, and the
cerebellar chamber projects considerably beyond
the cerebral.

When the gravest errors respecting points so
easily settled as this question respecting the
posterior lobes, can be authoritatively propounded,
it is no wonder that matters of observation, of no
very complex character, but still requiring a certain
amount of care, should have fared worse. Any
one who cannot see the posterior lobe in an ape's
brain is not likely to give a very valuable opinion
respecting the posterior cornu or the hippocampus
minor. If a man cannot see a church, it is pre-
posterous to take his opinion about its altar-piece
or painted window — so that I do not feel bound to
enter upon any discussion of these points, but
content myself with assuring the reader that
the posterior cornu and the hippocampus minor,

II PATTERN OF CONVOLUTIONS 139

have now been seen — usually, at least as well
developed as in man, and often better — not only
in the Chimpanzee, the Orang, and the Gibbon,
but in all the genera of the old world baboons and
monkeys, and in most of the new world forms,
including the Marmosets.

In fact, all the abundant and trustworthy
evidence (consisting of the results of careful
investigations directed to the determination of
these very questions, by skilled anatomists) which
we now possess, leads to the conviction that, so
far from the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu,
and the hippocampus minor, being structures
peculiar to and characteristic of man, as they have
been over and over again asserted to be, even
after the publication of the clearest demonstration
of the reverse, it is precisely these structures which
are the most marked cerebral characters common
to man with the apes. They are among the most
distinctly Simian peculiarities which the human
organism exhibits.

As to the convolutions, the brains of the apes
exhibit every stage of progress, from the almost
smooth brain of the Marmoset, to the Orang and
the Chimpanzee, which fall but little below
Man. And it is most remarkable that, as soon
as all the principal sulci appear, the pattern
according to which they are arranged is identical
with that of the corresponding sulci of man. The
surface of the brain of a monkey exhibits a sort of

140 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

skeleton map of man's, and in the man-like apes
the details become more and more filled in, until
it is only in minor characters, such as the greater
excavation of the anterior lobes, the constant
presence of fissures usually absent in man, and
the different disposition and proportions of some
convolutions, that the Chimpanzee's or the
Orang's brain can be structurally distinguished
from Man's.

So far as cerebral structure goes, therefore, it
is clear that Man differs less from the Chimpanzee
or the Orang, than these do even from the
Monkeys, and that the difference between the
brains of the Chimpanzee and of Man is almost
insignificant, when compared with that between
the Chimpanzee brain and that of a Lemur.

It must not be overlooked, however, that there
is a very striking difference in absolute mass and
weight between the lowest human brain and that
of the highest ape — a difference which is all the
more remarkable when we recollect that a full-
grown Gorilla is probably pretty nearly twice as
heavy as a Bosjesman, or as many an European
woman. It may be doubted whether a healthy
human adult brain ever weighed less than thirty-
one or two ounces, or that the heaviest Gorilla
brain has exceeded twenty ounces.

This is a very noteworthy circumstance, and
doubtless will one day help to furnish an explanation
of the great gulf which intervenes between tho

Chimpanzee.

FIG. 22. — Drawings oi' the cerebial Lemisiheieb of a Man

142 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

and of a Chimpanzee of the same length, in order to show the
relative proportions of the parts : the former taken from a
specimen, which Mr. Flower, Conservator of the Museum of
the Royal College of Surgeons, was good enough to dissect
for me ; the latter, from the photograph of a similarly
dissected Chimpanzee's brain, given in Mr. Marshall's paper
above referred to. a, posterior lobe ; b, lateral ventricle ; c,
posterior cornu ; x, the hippocampus minor.

lowest man and the highest ape in intellectual
power j1 but it has little systematic value, for the
simple reason that, as may be concluded from what
has been already said respecting cranial capacity,
the difference in weight of brain between the
highest and the lowest men is far greater, both

1 I say help to furnish : for I by no means believe that it
was any original difference of cerebral quality, or quantity,
which caused that divergence between the human and the
pithecoid stirpes, which has ended in the present enormous gulf
between them. It is no doubt perfectly true, in a certain sense,
that all difference of function is a result of difference of struc-
ture ; or, in other words, of difference in the combination of
the primary molecular forces of living substance ; and, starting
from this undeniable axiom, objectors occasionally, and with
much seeming plausibility, argue that the vast intellectual
chasm between the Ape and Man implies a corresponding
structural chasm in the organs of the intellectual functions ; so
that, it is said, the non-discovery of such vast differences
proves, not that they are absent, but that Science is incompetent
to detect them. A very little consideration, however, will, I
think, show the fallacy of this reasoning. Its validity hangs
upon the assumption, that intellectual power depends altogether
on the brain — whereas the brain is only one condition out of
many on which intellectual manifestations depend ; the others
being, chiefly, the organs of the senses and the motor appa-
ratuses, especially those which are concerned in prehension and
in the production of articulate speech.

A man born dumb, notwithstanding his great cerebral mass
and his inheritance of strong intellectual instincts, would be
capable of few higher intellectual manifestations than an

II WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN 143

relatively and absolutely, than that between the
lowest man and the highest ape. The latter, as
has been seen, is represented by, say twelve, ounces
of cerebral substance absolutely, or by 32 : 20 re-
latively ; but as the largest recorded human brain
weighed between 65 and 66 ounces, the former
difference is represented by more than 33 ounces
absolutely, or by 65 : 32 relatively. Regarded
systematically, the cerebral differences of man and
apes, are not of more than generic value ; his

Orang or a Chimpanzee, if he were confined to the society of
dumb associates. And yet there might not be the slightest
discernible difference between his brain and that of a highly
intelligent and cultivated person. The dumbness might be the
result of a defective structure of the mouth, or of the tongue,
or a mere defective innervation of these parts ; or it might
result from congenital deafness, caused by some minute delect
of the internal ear, which only a careful anatomist could
discover.

The argument, that because there is an immense difference
between a Man's intelligence and an Ape's, therefore, there
must be an equally immense difference between their brains,
appears to me to be about as well based as the reasoning by
which one should endeavour to prove that, because there is a
"great gulf" between a watch that keeps accurate time and
another that will not go at all, there is therefore a great
structural hiatus between the two watches. A hair in the
balance-wheel, a little rust on a pinion, a l>end in a tooth of
the escapement, a something so slight that only the practised
eye of the watchmaker can discover it. may be the source of all
the difference.

And believing, as I do, with Cuvier, that the possession of
articulate speech is the grand distinctive character of man
(whether it be absolutely peculiar to him or not), I find it very
easy to comprehend, that some equally inconspicuous structural
difference may have been the primary cause of the immeasurable
and practically infinite divergence of the Humr.ii frou the
Simian Stirps,

144 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

Family distinction resting chiefly on his dentition,
his pelvis, and his lower limbs.

Thus, whatever system of organs be studied,
the comparison of their modifications in the ape
series leads to one and the same result — that the
structural differences which separate Man from
the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee are not so great
as those which separate the Gorilla from the
lower apes.

But in enunciating this important truth I must
guard myself against a form of misunderstanding,
which is very prevalent. I find, in fact, that
those who endeavour to teach what nature so
clearly shows us in this matter, are liable to have
their opinions misrepresented and their phrase-
ology garbled, until they seem to say that the
structural differences between man and even the
highest apes are small and insignificant. Let me
take this opportunity then of distinctly asserting,
on the contrary, that they are great and signifi-
cant ; that every bone of a Gorilla bears marks by
which it might be distinguished from the corre-
sponding bone of a Man ; and that, in the present
creation, at any rate, no intermediate link bridges
over the gap between Homo and Troglodytes.

It would be no less wrong than absurd to deny
the existence of this chasm ; but it is at least
equally wrong and absurd to exaggerate its mag-
nitude and, resting on the admitted fact of ita

II MAN ONE OF THE PRIMATES 145

existence, to refuse to inquire whether it is wide
or narrow. Remember, if you will, that there is
no existing link between Man and the Gorilla,
but do not forget that there is a no less sharp line
of demarcation, a no less complete absence of any
transitional form, between the Gorilla and the
Orang, or the Orang and the Gibbon. I say, not
less sharp, though it is somewhat narrower. The
structural differences between Man and the Man-
like apes certainly justify our regarding him
as constituting a family apart from them;
though, inasmuch as he differs less from them
than they do from other families of the same
order, there can be no justification for placing
him in a distinct order.

And thus the sagacious foresight of the great
lawgiver of systematic zoology, Linnaeus, becomes
justified, and a century of anatomical research
brings us back to his conclusion, that man is a
member of the same order (for which the Linnsean
term PRIMATES ought to be retained) as the Apes
and Lemurs. This order is now divisible into seven
families, of about equal systematic value: the
first, the ANTHROPINI, contains Man alone ; - the
second, the CATARHINI, embraces the old world
apes; the third, the PLATYRHINI, all new world
apes, except the Marmosets; the fourth, the
ARCTOPITHECINI, contains the Marmosets ; the
fifth, the LEMURINI, the Lemurs — from which
Chciromys should probably be excluded to form a
174

146 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

sixth distinct family, the CHEIROMYINI; while
the seventh, the GALEOPITHECINI, contains only
the flying Lemur Galeopithecus, — a strange form
v hich almost touches on the Bats, as the
t'heiromys puts on a Eodent clothing, and the
Lemurs simulate Insectivora.

Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with
so extraordinary a series of gradations as this —
leading us insensibly from the crown and summit
of the animal creation down to creatures, from
which there is but a step, as it seems, to the
lowest, smallest, and least intelligent of the
placental Mammalia. It is as if nature herself
had foreseen the arrogance of man, and with
Roman severity had provided that his intellect,
by its very triumphs, should call into prominence
the slaves, admonishing the conqueror that he is
but dust.

These are the chief facts, this the immediate
conclusion from them to which I adverted in the
commencement of this Essay. The facts, I
believe, cannot be disputed ; and if so, the con-
clusion appears to me to be inevitable.

But if Man be separated by no greater structu-
ral barrier from the brutes than they are from
one another — then it seems to follow that if any
process of physical causation can be discovered by
which the genera and families of ordinary animals
have been produced, that process of causation is

II THE ORIGIN OF MAN 147

amply sufficient to account for the origin of Man.
In other words, if it could be shown that the
Marmosets, for example, have arisen by gradual
modification of the ordinary Platyrhini, or that
both Marmosets and Platyrhini are modified
ramifications of a primitive stock — then, there
would be no rational ground for doubting that
man might have originated, in the one case, by
the gradual modification of a man-like ape ; or,
in the other case, as a ramification of the same
primitive stock as those apes.

At the present moment, but one such process
of physical causation has any evidence in its
favour; or, in other words, there is but one
hypothesis regarding the origin of species of
animals in general which has any scientific exist-
ence— that propounded by Mr. Darwin. For
Lamarck, sagacious as many of his views were,
mingled them with so much that was crude and
even absurd, as to neutralize the benefit which
his originality might have effected, had he been a
more sober and cautious thinker; and though I
have heard of the announcement of a formula
touching "the ordained continuous becoming of
organic forms," it is obvious that it is the first
duty of a hypothesis to be intelligible, and that a
qua-qu&-versal proposition of this kind, which
may be read backwards, or forwards, or sideways,
with exactly the same amount of signification,
does not really exist, though it may seem to do so.

148 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

At the present moment, therefore, the question
of the relation of man to the lower animals re-
solves itself, in the end, into the larger question
of the tenability, or untenability, of Mr. Darwin's
views. But here we enter upon difficult ground,
and it behoves us to define our exact position
with the greatest care.

It cannot be doubted, I think, that Mr. Darwin
has satisfactorily proved that what he terms
selection, or selective modification, must occur,
and does occur, in nature ; and he has also proved
to superfluity that such selection is competent to
produce forms as distinct, structurally, as some
genera even are. If the animated world presented
us with none but structural differences, I should
have no hesitation in saying that Mr. Darwin
had demonstrated the existence of a true physical
cause, amply competent to account for the origin
of living species, and of man among the rest.

But, in addition to their structural distinctions,
the species of animals and plants, or at least
a great number of them, exhibit physiological
characters — what are known as distinct species,
structurally, being for the most part either alto-
gether incompetent to breed one with another ; or
if they breed, the resulting mule, or hybrid, is
unable to perpetuate its race with another hybrid
of the same kind.

A true physical cause is, however, admitted to
be such only on one condition — that it shall

ii DARWIN'S HYPOTHESIS 149

account for all the phenomena which come within
the range of its operation. If it is inconsistent
with any one phenomenon, it must be rejected ; if
it fails to explain any one phenomenon, it is so
far weak, so far to be suspected ; though it may
have a perfect right to claim provisional accept-
ance.

Now, Mr. Darwin's hypothesis is not, so far as
I am aware, inconsistent with any known biological
fact; on the contrary, if admitted, the facts of
Development, of Comparative Anatomy, of Geo-
graphical Distribution, and of Palaeontology, become
connected together, and exhibit a meaning such as
they never possessed before ; and I, for one, am
fully convinced, that if not precisely true, that
hypothesis is as near an approximation to the
truth as, for example, the Copernican hypothesis
was to the true theory of the planetary motions.

But, for all this, our acceptance of the Dar-
winian hypothesis must be provisional so long as
one link in the chain of evidence is wanting ; and
so long as all the animals and plants certainly
produced by selective breeding from a common
stock are fertile, and their progeny are fertile with
one another, that link will be wanting. For, so
long, selective breeding will not be proved to be
competent to do all that is required of it to pro-
duce natural species.

I have put this conclusion as strongly as
possible before the reader, because the last posi-

150 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

tion in which I wish to find myself is that of an
advocate for Mr. Darwin's, or any other views ; if
by an advocate is meant one whose business it is
to smooth over real difficulties, and to persuade
where he cannot convince.

In justice to Mr. Darwin, however, it must be
admitted that the conditions of fertility and
sterility are very ill understood, and that every
day's advance in knowledge leads us to regard the
hiatus in his evidence as of less and less import-
ance, when set against the multitude of facts
which harmonize with, or receive an explanation
from, his doctrines.

I adopt Mr. Darwin's hypothesis, therefore, sub-
ject to the production of proof that physiological
species may be produced by selective breeding;
just as a physical philosopher may accept the
undulatory theory of light, subject to the proof of
the existence of the hypothetical ether ; or as the
chemist adopts the atomic theory, subject to the
proof of the existence of atoms ; and for exactly
the same reasons, namely, that it has an immense
amount of prima facie probability : that it is the
only means at present within reach of reducing
the chaos of observed facts to order ; and lastly,
that it is the most powerful instrument of investi-
gation which has been presented to naturalists
since the invention of the natural system of classi-
fication, and the commencement of the systematic
study of embryology.

II OBJECTIONS : SENTIMENTAL AND OTHER 151

But even leaving Mr. Darwin's views aside, the
whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so
complete and crushing an argument against the
intervention of any but what are termed secondary
causes, in the production of all the phenomena of
the universe ; that, in view of the intimate rela-
tions between Man and the rest of the living
world, and between the forces exerted by the
latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for
doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of
Nature's great progression, from the formless to
the formed — from the inorganic to the organic — •
from blind force to conscious intellect and will.

Science has fulfilled her function when she has
ascertained and enunciated truth ; and were these
pages addressed to men of science only, I should
now close this Essay, knowing that my colleagues
have learned to respect nothing but evidence, and
to believe that their highest duty lies in sub-
mitting to it, however it may jar against their
inclinations.

But desiring, as I do, to reach the wider circle
of the intelligent public, it would be unworthy
cowardice were I to ignore the repugnance with
which the majority of my readers are likely to
meet the conclusions to which the most careful
and conscientious study I have been able to give
to this matter, has led me.

On all sides I shall hear the cry — " We are men

152 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

and women, not a mere better sort of apes, a little
longer in the leg, more compact in the foot, and
bigger in brain than your brutal Chimpanzees and
Gorillas. The* power of knowledge — the con-
science of good and evil — the pitiful tenderness of
human affections, raise us out of all real fellowship
with the brutes, however closely they may seem to
approximate us/'

To this I can only reply that the exclamation
would be most just and would have my own entire
sympathy, if it were only relevant. But, it is not
I who seek to base Man's dignity upon his great
toe, or insinuate that we are lost if an Ape has a
hippocampus minor. On the contrary, I have
done my best to sweep away this vanity. I have
endeavoured to show that no absolute structural
line of demarcation, wider than that between the
animals which immediately succeed us in the
scale, can be drawn between the animal world and
ourselves ; and I may add the expression of my
belief that the attempt to draw a psychical dis-
tinction is equally futile, and that even the
highest faculties of feeling and of intellect begin
to germinate in lower forms of life.1 At the same

1 It is so rare a pleasure for me to find Professor Owen's
opinions in entire accordance with my own, that I cannot for-
bear from quoting a paragraph which appeared in his Essay
"On the Characters, &c., of the Class Mammalia," in the
Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London for
1857, but is unaccountably omitted in the "Reade Lecture"
delivered before the University of Cambridge two years later

n OBJECTIONS 153

time, no one is more strongly convinced than I am
of the vastness of the gulf between civilized man
and the brutes ; or is more certain that whether
from them or not, he is assuredly not of them,
No one is less disposed to think lightly of the
present dignity, or desparingly of the future hopes,
of the only consciously intelligent denizen of this
world.

We are indeed told by those who assume
authority in these matters, that the two sets of
opinions are incompatible, and that the belief in
the unity of origin of man and brutes involves the I
brutalization and degradation of the former. But
is this really so ? Could not a sensible child con-
fute by obvious arguments, the shallow rhetori-
cians who would force this conclusion upon us ?
Is it, indeed, true, that the Poet, or the Philoso-
pher, or the Artist whose genius is the glory of his
age, is degraded from his high estate by the

which is otherwise nearly a reprint of the paper in question.
Prof. Owen writes :

"Not being able to appreciate or conceive of the distinction
between the psychical phenomena of a Chimpanzee and of a
Boschisman or of an Aztec, with arrested brain growth, as being
of a nature so essential as to preclude a comparison between
them, or as being other than a difference of degree, I cannot
shut my eyes to the significance of that all-pervading similitude
of structure — every tooth, every bone, strictly homologous —
which makes the determination of the difference between Homo
and Pithecus the anatomist's difficulty."

Surely it is a little singular, that the "anatomist," who finds
it "difficult" to determine "the difference" between Homo
and Pithecus, should yet range them on anatomical grounds, in
distinct sub-classes.

154 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

undoubted historical probability, not to say cer-
tainty, that he is the direct descendant of some
naked and bestial savage, whose intelligence was

- just sufficient to make him a little more cunning
than the Fox, and by so much more dangerous
than the Tiger ? Or is he bound to howl and

"" grovel on all fours because of the wholly unques-
tionable fact, that he was once an egg, which no
ordinary power of discrimination could distinguish
from that of a Dog ? Or is the philanthropist, or
the saint, to give up his endeavours to lead a noble
life, because the simplest study of man's nature
reveals, at its foundations, all the selfish passions,
and fierce appetites of the merest quadruped ?" Is
mother-love vile because a hen shows it, or fidelity
base because dogs possess it ?

The common sense of the mass of mankind
will answer these questions without a moment's
hesitation. Healthy humanity, finding itself hard
pressed to escape from real sin and degradation,
will leave the brooding over speculative pollution
to the cynics and the "righteous overmuch " who,
disagreeing in everything else, unite in blind
insensibility to the nobleness of the visible world,
and in inability to appreciate the grandeur of the
place Man occupies therein.

Nay more, thoughtful men, once escaped from
the blinding influences of traditional prejudice,
will find in the lowly stock whence Man has
sprung, the best evidence of the splendour of his

II OBJECTIONS 155

capacities ; and will discern in his long progress
through the Past, a reasonable ground of faith in
his attainment of a nobler Future.

They will remember that in comparing civilised
man with the animal world, one is as the Alpine
traveller, who sees the mountains soaring into the
sky and can hardly discern where the deep
shadowed crags and roseate peaks end, and where
the clouds of heaven begin. Surely the awe-
struck voyager may be excused if, at first, he
refuses to believe the geologist, who tells him that
these glorious masses are, after all, the hardened
mud of primeval seas, or the cooled slag of sub-
terranean furnaces — of one substance with the
dullest clay, but raised by inward forces to that
place of proud and seemingly inaccessible glory.

But the geologist is right ; and due reflection
on his teachings, instead of diminishing our
reverence and our wonder, adds all the force of
intellectual sublimity to the mere aesthetic intui-
tion of the uninstructed beholder.

And after passion and prejudice have died
away, the same result will attend the teachings of
the naturalist respecting that great Alps and
Andes of the living world — Man. Our reverence
for the nobility of manhood will not be lessened
by the knowledge that Man is, in substance and
in structure, one with the brutes; for, he alone
possesses the marvellous endowment of intelligible
and rational speech, whereby, in the secular period

156 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS n

of his existence, he has slowly accumulated and
organised the experience which is almost wholly
lost with the cessation of every individual life in
other animals ; so that, now, he stands raised upon
it as on a mountain top, far above the level of his
humble fellows, and transfigured from his grosser
nature by reflecting, here and there, a ray from the
infinite source of truth.

HI

ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN

I HAVE endeavoured to show, in the preceding
Essay, that the ANTHROPINI, or Man Family, form
a very well-defined group of the Primates, between
which and the immediately following Family, the
CATARHINI, there is, in the existing world, the
same entire absence of any transitional form or
connecting link, as between the CATARHINI and
PLATYRHINI.

It is a commonly received doctrine, however,
that the structural intervals between the various
existing modifications of organic beings may be
diminished, or even obliterated, if we take into
account the long and varied succession of animals
and plants which have preceded these now living
and which are known to us only by their fossilized
remains. How far this doctrine is well based, how
far, on the other hand, as our knowledge at
present stands, it is an overstatement of the real
facts of the case, and an exaggeration of the con-

158 HUMAN FOSSILS III

elusions fairly deducible from them, are points of
grave importance, but into the discussion of which
I do not, at present, propose to enter. It is
enough that such a view of the relations of extinct
to living beings has been propounded, to lead us
to inquire, with anxiety, how far the recent dis-
coveries of human remains in a fossil state bear
out, or oppose, that view.

I shall confine myself, in discussing this question,
to those fragmentary Human skulls from the
caves of Engis in the valley of the Meuse, in
Belgium, and of the Neanderthal, near Diissel-
dorf, the geological relations of which have been
examined with so much care by Sir Charles Lyell ;
upon whose high authority I shall take it for
granted, that the Engis skull belonged to a
contemporary of the Mammoth (Elcphas primi-
gcnius) and of the woolly Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros
tichorhinus), with the bones of which it was found
associated ; and that the Neanderthal skull is of
great, though uncertain, antiquity. Whatever be
the geological age of the latter skull, I conceive it
is quite safe (on the ordinary principles of paleon-
tological reasoning) to assume that the former
takes us to, at least, the further side of the vague
biological limit, which separates the present
geological epoch from that which immediately
preceded it. And there can be no doubt that the
physical geography of Europe has changed
wonderfully, since the bones of Men and Mam-

THE MAN OF ENGIS

159

moths, Hyaenas and Rhinoceroses were washed
pell-mell into the cave of Engis.

The skull from the cave of Engis was originally

FIG. 2?. — The skull from the cave of Engis — viewed from the
right side. One half the size of nature, a glabella, b occipital
protuberance (a to b glabello-occipital line), c auditory foramen.

discovered by Professor Schmerling, and was
described by him, together with other human
remains disinterred at the same time, in his

160 HUMAN FOSSILS m

valuable work, " Becherches sur les Ossemens
fossiles decouverts dans les Cavernes de la Province
de Liege," published in 1833 (p. 59, et seq.), from
which the following paragraphs are extracted, the
precise expressions of the author being, as far as
possible, preserved.

"In the first place, I must remark that these human remains,
which are in my possession, are characterised, like the thousands
of bones which I have lately been disinterring, by the extent
of the decomposition which they have undergone, which is
precisely the same as that of the extinct species : all, with a
few exceptions, are broken ; some few are rounded, as is fre-
quently found to be the case in fossil remains of other species.
The fractures are vertical or oblique ; none of them are eroded ;
their colour does not differ from that of other fossil bones, and
varies from whitish yellow to blackish. All are lighter than
recent bones, with the exception of those which have a calcareous
incrustation, and the cavities of which are filled with such
matter.

" The cranium which I have caused to be figured, Plate I,
figs. 1, 2, is that of an old person. The sutures are beginning
to lie effaced : all the facial bones are wanting, and of the
temporal bones only a fragment of that of the right side is
preserved.

"The face and the base of the cranium had been detached
before the skull was deposited in the cave, for we were unable
to find those parts, though the whole cavern was regularly
searched. The cranium was met with at a depth of a metre and
a half [five feet nearly] hidden under an osseous breccia, com-
posed of the remains of small animals, and containing one
rhinoceros' tusk, with several teeth of horses and of ruminants.
This breccia, which has been spoken of above (p. 31), was a
metre [3-£ feet about] wide, and rose to the height of a metre
and a half above the floor of the cavern, to the walls of which
it adhered strongly.

[II

THE ENGIS SKULL 101

" The earth which contained this human skull exhibited no
trace of disturbance : teeth of rhinoceros, horse, hyaena, and
bear, surrounded it on all sides.

"The famous Blumenbach 1 has directed attention to the
differences presented by the form and the dimensions of human
crania of different races. This important work would have
assisted us greatly, if the face, a part essential for the determina-
tion of race, with more or less accuracy, had not been wanting
in our fossil cranium.

"We are convinced that even if the skull had been complete,
it would not have been possible to pronounce, with certainty,
upon a single specimen ; for individual variations are so numerous
in the crania of one and the same race, that one cannot, without
laying one's self open to large chances of error, draw any inference
from a single fragment of a cranium to the general form of the
head to which it belonged.

"Nevertheless, in order to neglect no point respecting the
form of this fossil skull, we may observe that, from the first,
the elongated and narrow form of the forehead attracted our
attention.

" In fact, the slight elevation of the frontal, its narrowness,
and the form of the orbit, approximate it more nearly to the
cranium of an Ethiopian than to that of an European ; the
elongated form and the produced occiput are also characters
which we believe to be observable in our fossil cranium ; but
to remove all doubt upon that subject I have caused the con-
tours of the cranium of an European and of an Ethiopian to
be drawn and the foreheads represented, Plate II, Figs. 1 and 2,
and, in the same plate, Figs. 3 and 4, will render the differences
easily distinguishable ; and a single glance at the figures will
be more instructive than a long and wearisome description.

"At whatever conclusion we may arrive as to the origin of
the man from whence this fossil skull proceeded, we may express
an opinion without exposing ourselves to a fruitless controversy.
Each may adopt the hypothesis which seems to him most prob-
able : for my own part, I hold it to be demonstrated that this

1 Dccas Collcctionis suce craniorum diversarum gentium
Ulustrata.—GottmgK, 1790-1820.
175

162 HUMAN FOSSILS III

cranium has belonged to a person of limited intellectual faculties,
and we conclude thence that it belonged to a man of a low degree
of civilization : a deduction which is borne out by contrasting
the capacity of the frontal with that of the occipital region.

" Another cranium of a young individual was discovered in the
floor of the cavern beside the tooth of an elephant ; the skull
was entire when found, but the moment it was lifted it fell into
pieces, which I have not, as yet, been able to put together again.
But I have represented the bones of the upper jaw, Plate I, Fig.
5. The state of the alveoli and the teeth, shows that the molars
had not yet pierced the gum. Detached milk molars and some
fragments of a human skull, proceed from this same place. The
figure 3 represents a human superior incisor tooth, the size of
which is truly remarkable.1

" Figure 4 is a fragment of a superior maxillary bone, the
molar teeth of which are worn down to the roots.

" I possess two vertebrae, a first and last dorsal.

"A clavicle of the left side (see Plate III, Fig. 1) ; although
it belonged to a young individual, this bone shows that he must
have been of great stature. 2

" Two fragments of the radius, badly preserved, do not indicate
that the height of the man, to whom they belonged, exceeded
five feet and a half.

" As to the remains of the upper extremities, those which
are in my possession consist merely of a fragment of an ulna and
of a radius (Plate III, Figs. 5 and 6).

" Figure 2, Plate IV., represents a metacarpal bone, contained
in the breccia, of which we have spoken ; it was found in the
lower part above the cranium : add to this some metacarpal
bones, found at very different distances, half-a-dozen metatarsals,
three phalanges of the hand, and one of the foot.

1 In a subsequent passage, Schmerling remarks upon the oc-
currence of an incisor tooth " of enormous size " from the caverns
of Engihonl. The tooth figured is somewhat long, but its dimen-
sions do not appear to me to be otherwise remarkable.

a The figure of this clavicle measures 5 inches from end to
end in a straight line — so that the bone is rather a small than a
large one.

Ill THE ENGIS SKULL 168

" This is a brief enumeration of the remains of human bonea
collected in the cavern of Engis, which has preserved for us the
remains of three individuals, surrounded by those of the
Elephant, of the Rhinoceros, and of Garni vora of species un-
known in the present creation."

From the cave of Engihoul, opposite that of
Engis, on the right bank of the Meuse, Schinerling
obtained the remains of three other individuals of
Man, among which were only two fragments of
parietal bones, but many bones of the extremities.
In one case, a broken fragment of an ulna was
soldered to a like fragment of a radius by stalag-
mite, a condition frequently observed among the
bones of the Cave Bear ( Ursus spelceus), found in
the Belgian caverns.

It was in the cavern of Engis that Professor
Schmerling found, incrusted with stalagmite and
joined to a stone, the pointed bone implement,
which he has figured in Fig. 7 of his Plate
XXXVI, and worked flints were found by him
in all those Belgian caves, which contained an
abundance of fossil bones.

A short letter from M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, pub-
lished in the " Comptes Rendus " of the Academy
of Sciences of Paris, for July 2nd, 1838, speaks of a
visit (and apparently a very hasty one) paid to the
collection of Professor " Schermidt " (which is pre-
sumably a misprint for Schmerling) at Liege. The
writer briefly criticises the drawings which illustrate
Schmerling's work, and affirms that the " human

164 HUMAN FOSSILS III

cranium is a little longer than it is represented "
in Schmerling's figure. The only other remark
worth quoting is this : —

" The aspect of the Tinman bones differs little from that of
the cave bones, with which we are familiar, and of which there
is a considerable collection in the same place. With respect to
their special forms, compared with those of the varieties of
recent human crania, few certain conclusions can be put forward ;
for much greater differences exist between the different specimens
of well-characterized varieties, than between the fossil cranium
of Liege and that of one of those varieties selected as a term of
comparison."

Geoffrey St. Hilaire's remarks are, it will be
observed, little but an echo of the philosophic
doubts of the describer and discoverer of the
remains. As to the critique upon Schmerling's
figures, I find that the side view given by the
latter is really about -j^ths of an inch shorter
than the original, and that the front view is
diminished to about the same extent. Otherwise
the representation is not, in any way, inaccurate,
but corresponds very well with the cast which is
in my possession.

A piece of the occipital bone, which Schmerling
seems to have missed, has since been fitted on to
the rest of the cranium by an accomplished anat-
omist, Dr. Spring of Liege, under whose direction
an excellent plaster cast was made for Sir Charles
Lyell. It is upon and from a duplicate of that cast
that my own observations and the accompanying

Ill THE ENGIS SKULL 165

figures, the outlines of which are copied from very
accurate Camera lucida drawings, by my friend
Mr. Busk, reduced to one-half of the natural size,
are made.

As Professor Schmerling observes, the base of the
skull is destroyed, and the facial bones are entirety
absent ; but the roof of the cranium, consisting of
the frontal, parietal, and the greater part of the
occipital bones, as far as the middle of the occi-
pital foramen, is entire, or nearly so. The left
temporal bone is wanting. Of the right temporal,
the parts in the immediate neighbourhood of the
auditory foramen, the mastoid process, and a con-
siderable portion of the squamous element of the
temporal are well preserved (Fig. 23).

The lines of fracture which remain between the
coadjusted pieces of the skull, and are faithfully
displayed in Schmerling's figure, are readily trace-
able in the cast. The sutures are also discernible,
but the complex disposition of their serrations,
shown in the figure, is not obvious in the cast.
Though the ridges which give attachment to
muscles are not excessively prominent, they are
well marked, and taken together with the appar-
ently well developed frontal sinuses, and the con-
dition of the sutures, leave no doubt on my mind
that the skull is that of an adult, if not middle-
aged man.

The extreme length of the skull is 7*7 inches,
Its extreme breadth, which corresponds very nearly

FIG. 24. — The Engis sknll viewed from above (A] and in
front (B\

Ill THE ENGIS SKULL 167

with the interval between the parietal protuber-
ances, is not more than 5*4 inches. The propor-
tion of the length to the breadth is therefore very
nearly as 100 to 70. If a line be drawn from the
point at which the brow curves in towards the
root of the nose, and which is called the " glabella "
(a), (Fig. 23), to the occipital protuberance (6), and
the distance to the highest point of the arch of
the skull be measured perpendicularly from this
line, it will be found to be 4*75 inches. Viewed
from above, Fig. 24, A, the forehead presents an
evenly rounded curve, and passes into the contour
of the sides and back of the skull, which describes
a tolerably regular elliptical curve.

The front view (Fig. 24, B) shows that the roof of
the skull was very regularly and elegantly arched
in the transverse direction, and that the transverse
diameter was a little less below the parietal pro-
tuberances, than above them. The forehead cannot
be called narrow in relation to the rest of the skull,
nor can it be called a retreating forehead ; on the
contrary, the antero-posterior contour of the skull
is well arched, so that the distance along that con-
tour, from the nasal depression to the occipital
protuberance, measures about 13*75 inches. The
transverse arc of the skull, measured from one
auditory foramen to the other, across the middle
of the sagittal suture, is about 13 inches. The
sagittal suture itself is 5'5 inches long.

The supraciliary prominences or brow -ridged

1G8 HUMAN FOSSILS III

(on each side of a, Fig. 23) are well, but not ex-
cessively, developed, and are separated by a median
\ depression. Their principal elevation is disposed
^ so obliquely that I judge them to be due to large
frontal sinuses.

If a line joining the glabella and the occipital
protuberance (a, b, Fig. 23) be made horizontal, no
part of the occipital region projects more than -^ih
of an inch behind the posterior extremity of that
line, and the upper edge of the auditory foramen
(c) is almost in contact with a line drawn parallel
with this upon the outer surface of the skull.

A transverse line drawn from one auditory fora-
men to the other traverses, as usual, the fore part of
the occipital foramen. The capacity of the interior
of this fragmentary skull has not been ascertained.

The history of the Human remains from the
cavern in the Neanderthal may best be given in
the words of their original describer, Dr. Schaaff-
hausen,1 as translated by Mr. Busk.

" In the early part of the year 1857, a human skeleton was
discovered in a limestone cave in the Neanderthal, near
Hochdal, between Diisseldorf and Elberfeld. Of this, however,
I was unable to procure more than a plaster cast of the cranium,
taken at Elberfeld, from which I drew up an account of its

1 On the Crania of the most Ancient Races of Man. — By Pro
fessor D. Schaaffhausen, of Bonn. (From Miiller's Archiv.,
1858, pp. 453.) With Remarks, and original Figures, taken
from a Cast of the Neanderthal Cranium. By George Busk,
F.R.S., &c. Natural History Review, April, 1861.

Ell THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 169

remarkable conformation, which was, in the first instance, read
on the 4th of February, 1857, at the meeting of the Lower Rhine
Medical and Natural History Society, at Bonn.1 Subsequently
Dr. Fuhlrott, to whom science is indebted for the preservation
of these bones, which were not at first regarded as human, and
into whose possession they afterwards came, brought the cranium
from Elberfeld to Bonn, and entrusted it to me for more accurate
anatomical examination. At the General Meeting of the Natural
History Society of Prussian Rhinelandand Westphalia, at Bonn,
on the 2nd of June, 1857, 2 Dr. Fuhlrott himself gave a full
account of the locality, and of the circumstances under which
the discovery was made. He was of opinion that the bones
might be regarded as fossil ; and in coming to this conclusion,
he laid especial stress upon the existence of dendritic deposits,
with which their surface was covered, and which were first
noticed upon them by Professor Mayer. To this communication
I appended a brief report on the results of my anatomical ex-
amination of the bones. The conclusions at which I arrived
were : 1st. That the extraordinary form of the skull was due
to a natural conformation hitherto not known to exist, even in
the most barbarous races. 2nd. That these remarkable human
remains belonged to a period antecedent to the time of the Celts
and Germans, and were in all probability derived from one of
the wild races of North-western Europe, spoken of by Latin
writers ; and which were encountered as autochthones by the
German immigrants. And 3rdly. That it was beyond doubt
that these human relics were traceable to a period at which the
latest animals of the diluvium still existed ; but that no proof
of this assumption, nor consequently of their so-termed fossil
condition, was afforded by the circumstances under which the
bones were discovered.

"As Dr. Fuhlrott has not yet published his description of
these circumstances, I borrow the following account of them
from one of his letters. * A small cave or grotto, high enough

1 VerhandL d. Naturhist. Vcrcins der preuss. Rheinlande
und Westphalcns., xiv. — Bonn, 1857.

2 Ib. Correspondenzblatt. No. 2.

170 HUMAN FOSSILS HI

to admit a man, and about 15 feet deep from the entrance,
which is 7 or 8 feet wide, exists in the southern wall of the
gorge of the Neanderthal, as it is termed, at a distance of about
100 feet from the Dlissel, and about 60 feet above the bottom of
the valley. In its earlier and uninjured condition, this cavern
opened upon a narrow plateau lying in front of it, and from
which the rocky wall descended almost perpendicularly into the
river. It could be reached, though with difficulty, from above.
The uneven floor was covered to a thickness of 4 or 5 feet with
a deposit of mud, sparingly intermixed with rounded fragments
of chert. In the removing of this deposit, the bones were dis-
covered. The skull was first noticed, placed nearest to the
entrance of the cavern ; and further in, the other bones, lying
in the same horizontal plane. Of this I was assured, in the
most positive terms, by two labourers who were employed to
clear out the grotto, and who were questioned by me on the
spot. At first no idea was entertained of the bones being
human ; and it was not till several weeks after their discovery
that they were recognised as such by me, and placed in security.

" * But, as the importance'of the discovery was not at the time
perceived, the labourers were very careless in the collecting, and
secured chiefly only the larger bones ; and to this circumstance
it may be attributed that fragments merely of the probably
perfect skeleton came into my possession.'

" My anatomical examination of these bones afforded the
following results : —

"The cranium is of unusual size, and of a long-elliptical form.
A most remarkable peculiarity is at once obvious in the ex-
traordinary development of the frontal sinuses, owing to which
the superciliary ridges, which coalesce completely in the middle,
are rendered so prominent, that the frontal bone exhibits a
considerable hollow or depression above, or rather behind them,
whilst a deep depression is also formed in the situation of the
root of the nose. The forehead is narrow and low, though the
middle and hinder portions of the cranial arch are well developed.
Unfortunately, the fragment of the skull that has been preserved
consists only of the portion situated above the roof of the
Dibits and the superior occipital ridges, which are greatly de-

Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 171

veloped, and almost conjoined so as to form a horizontal
eminence. It includes almost the whole of the frontal bone,
both parietals, a small part of the squamous and the upper-
third of the occipital. The recently fractured surfaces show that
the skull was broken at the time of its disinterrnent. The
cavity holds 16,876 grains of water, whence its cubical contents
may be estimated at 57 '64 inches, or 1033*24 cubic centimetres.
In making this estimation, the water is supposed to stand on a
level with the orbital plate of the frontal, with the deepest notch
in the squamous margin of the parietal, and with the superior
semicircular ridges of the or-cipital. Estimated in dried millet-
seed, the contents equalled 31 ounces, Prussian Apothecaries'
weight. The semicircular line indicating the upper boundary of
the attachment of the temporal muscle, though not very strongly
marked, ascends nevertheless to more than half the height of the
parietal bone. On the right superciliary ridge is observable an
oblique furrow or depression, indicative of an injury received
during life. l The coronal and sagittal sutures are on the exterior
nearly closed, and on the inside so completely ossified as to "have
left no traces whatever, whilst the lambdoidal remains quite
open. The depressions for the Pacehionian glands are deep and
numerous ; and there is an unusually deep vascular groove
immediately behind the coronal suture, which, as it terminates
in a foramen, no doubt transmitted a vena cmissaria. The
course of the frontal suture is indicated externally by a slight
ridge ; and where it joins the coronal, this ridge rises into a
small protuberance. The course of the sagittal suture is grooved,
and above the angle of the occipital bone the parietals are

depressed.

mm.2 inches.

The length of the skull from the nasal

process of the frontal over the

vertex to the superior semicircular

lines of the occipital measures . 303 (300) = 12 '0."

1 This, Mr. Busk has pointed out, is probably the notch foi
the frontal nerve.

3 The numbers in brackets are those which I should assign to
the different measures, as taken from the plaster cast. — G. B.

172 HUMAN FOSSILS III

mm. inches.

Circumference over the orbital ridges

and the superior semicircular lines

of the occipital 590 (590) = 23 '37" or 23".

Width of the frontal from the middle

of the temporal line on one side to

the same point on the opposite . . 104 (114) = 4'1" — 4*5".
Length of the frontal from the nasal

process to the coronal suture. . 133 (125) = 5 "25" — 5".
Extreme width of the frontal sinuses 25 (23) = I'O" — 0'9".
Vertical height above a line joining

the deepest notches in the squamous

border of the parietals 70 =275".

Width of hinder part of skull from

one parietal protuberance to the

other 138 (150) = 5 '4" —5 '9".

Distance from the upper angle of the

occipital to the superior semicir-
cular lines 51 (60) = 1 '9"— 2'4".

Thickness of the bone at the parietal

protuberance 8.

at the angle of the occipital 9.

at the superior semicircular

line of the occipital 10 =03".

"Besides the cranium, the following bones have been so-
cured : —

"1. Both thigh-bones, perfect. These, like the skull, and all
the other bones, are characterized by their unusual thickness,
and the great development of all the elevations and depressions
for the attachment of muscles. In the Anatomical Museum at
Bonn, under the designation of 'Giant's -bones,' are some recent
thigh-bones, with which in thickness the foregoing pretty nearly
correspond, although they are shorter.

Giant's bones. Fossil bones.

mm. inches. mm. inches,

Length 542 = 21 '4" ...438 = 17-4",

Diameter of head of femur 54 = 2'H" . . 53 = 2'0"

HI THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 173

Giant's bones. Fossil bones,
lum. inches, mm. inches
Diameter of lower articular end,
from one condyle to the

other 89 = 3'5" ... 87 = ?>'4".

Diameter of femur in the middle . 33 = 1*2" ... 30 = IT'.

" 2. A perfect right humerus, whose size shows that it belongs
to the thigh-bones.

mm. inches.

Length 312 = 12'3'.

Thickness in the middle ... 26=1 •()".
Diameter of head 49=1 '9".

11 Also a perfect right radius of corresponding dimensions and
the upper-third of a right ulna corresponding to the humerua
and radius.

" 3. A left humerus, of which the upper-third is wanting, and
which is so much slenderer than the right as apparently to belong
to a distinct individual ; a left ulna, which, though complete, is
pathologically deformed, the coronoid process being so much
enlarged by bony growth, that flexure of the elbow beyond a
right angle must have been impossible ; the anterior fossa of the
humerus for the reception of the coronoid process being also
filled up with a similar bony growth. At the same time, the
olecranon is curved strongly downwards. As the bone presents
no sign of rachitic degeneration, it may be supposed that an
injury sustained during life was the cause of the anchylosis.
When the left ulna is compared with the right radius, it might
at first sight be concluded that the bones respectively belonged
to different individuals, the ulna being more than half an inch
too short for articulation with a corresponding radius. But it
is clear that this shortening, as well as the attenuation of the
left humerus, are both consequent upon the pathological condi-
tion above described.

" 4. A left ilium, almost perfect, and belonging to the femur ;
a fragment of the right scapula ; the anterior extremity of a rih
of the right side ; and the same part of a rib of the left side ;
the hinder part of a rib of the right side ; and, lastly, two

174 HUMAN FOSSILS III

hinder portions and one middle portion of ribs which, from their
unusually rounded shape, and abrupt curvature, more resemble
the ribs of a carnivorous animal than those of a man. Dr. II. v.
-Meyer, however, to whose judgment I defer, will not venture to
declare them to be ribs of any animal ; and it only remains to
suppose that this abnormal condition has arisen from an un-
usually powerful development of the thoracic muscles.

"The bones adhere strongly to the tongue, although, as proved
by the use of hydrochloric acid, the greater part of the cartilage
is still retained in them, which appears, however, to have under-
gone that transformation into gelatine which has been observed
by v. Bibra in fossil bones. The surface of all the bones is
in many spots covered with minute black specks, which, more
especially under a lend, are seen to be formed of very delicate
dendrites. These deposits, which were first observed on the
bones by Dr. Mayer, are most distinct on the inner surface of the
cranial bones. They consist of a ferruginous compound, and,
from their black colour, maybe supposed to contain manganese.
Similar dendritic formations also occur, not unfrequently, on
laminated rocks, and are usually found in minute fissures and
cracks. At the meeting of the Lower Rhine Society at Bonn,
on the 1st April, 1857, Prof. Mayer stated that he had noticed
in the museum of Poppelsdorf similar dendritic crystallizations
on several fossil bones of animals, and particularly on those of
Ursus spelceus, but still more abundantly and beautifully dis-
played on the fossil bones and teeth of Equus adamiticus,
Elephas primigenius, &c., from the caves of Bolve and Sundwig.
Faint indications of similar dendrites were visible in a Roman
skull from Siegburg ; whilst other ancient skulls, which had
lain for centuries in the earth, presented no trace of them.1 I
am indebted to H. v. Meyer for the following remarks on this
subject : —

" 'The incipient formation of dendritic deposits, which were
formerly regarded as a sign of a truly fossil condition, is in-
teresting. It has even been supposed that in diluvial deposits

1 V&rh. des Nalurhist, Vereins in Bonn, xiv. 1857.

Ill

THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 175

the presence of dcndrites might be regarded as affording a certain
mark of distinction between bones mixed with the diluvium
at a somewhat later period and the true diluvial relics, to which
alone it was supposed that these deposits were confined. But
I have long been convinced that neither can the absence of
dcndrites be regarded as indicative of recent age, nor their
presence as sufficient to establish the great antiquity of the
objects upon which they occur. I have myself noticed upon
paper, which could scarcely be more than a year old, dendritic
deposits, which could not be distinguished from those on fossil
bones. Thus I possess a dog's skull from the Roman colony of
the neighbouring Heddersheim, Castrum Hadrianum, which is
in no way distinguishable from the fossil bones from the
Frankish caves ; it presents the same colour, and adheres to
the tongue just as they do ; so that this character also,
which, at a former meeting of German naturalists at Bonn,
gave rise to amusing scenes between Buckland and Schmerling,
is no longer of any value. In disputed cases, therefore, the
condition of the bone can scarcely afford the means for deter-
mining with certainty whether it be fossil, that is to say,
whether it belong to geological antiquity or to the historical
period.'

"As we cannot now look upon the primitive world as repre-
senting a wholly different condition of things, from which no
transition exists to the organic life of the present time, the
designation of fossil, as applied to a bone, has no longer the
sense it conveyed in the time of Cuvier. Sufficient grounds
exist for the assumption that man coexisted with the animals
found in the diluvium ; and many a barbarous race may, before
all historical time, have disappeared, together with the animals
of the ancient world, whilst the races whose organization is
improved have continued, the genus. The bones which form
the subject of this paper present characters which, although
not decisive as regards a geological epoch, are, nevertheless,
such as indicate a very high antiquity. It may also be remarked
that, common as is the occurrence of diluvial animal bones in
the muddy deposits of caverns, such remains have not hitherto

176 HUMAN FOSSILS in

been met with in the caves of the Neanderthal ; an^ that the
bones, which were covered by a deposit of nmd not more than
four or five feet thick, and without any protective covering of
stalagmite, have retained the greatest part of their organic
substance.

"These circumstances might be adduced against the proba-
bility of a geological antiquity. Nor should we be justified in
regarding the cranial conformation as perhaps representing tho
most savage primitive type of the human race, since crania
exist among living savages, which, though not exhibiting such
a remarkable conformation of the forehead, which gives the
skull somewhat the aspect of that of the large apes, still in
other respects, as for instance in the greater depth of the tem-
poral fossae, the crest-like, prominent temporal ridges, and a
generally leas capacious cranial cavity, exhibit an equally low
stage of development. There is no reason for supposing that
the deep frontal hollow is due to any artificial flattening, such
as is practised in various modes by barbarous nations in the
Old and New World. The skull is quite symmetrical, and
shows no indication of counter-pressure at the occiput, whilst,
according to Morton, in the Flat-heads of the Columbia, the
frontal and parietal bones are always unsymmetrical. Its con-
formation exhibits the sparing development of the anterior part
of the head which has been so often observed in very ancient
crania, and affords one of the most striking proofs of the
influence of culture and civilization on the form of the human
skull"

In a subsequent passage, Dr. Schaaffhausen
remarks :

"There is no reason whatever for regarding the unusual
development of the frontal sinuses in the remarkable skull from
the Neanderthal as an individual or pathological deformity ; it
is unquestionably a typical race-character, and is physiologically
connected with the uncommon thickness of the other bones of
the skeleton, which exceeds by about one-half the usual pro-
portions. This expansion of the frontal sinuses, which arc

Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 177

appendages of the air-passages, also indicates an unusual force
and power of endurance in the movements of the body, as may
be concluded from the size of all the ridges and processes for
the attachment of the muscles or bones. That this conclusion
may be drawn from the existence of large frontal sinuses, and a
prominence of the lower frontal region, is confirmed in many
ways by other observations. By the same characters, according
to Pallas, the wild horse is distinguished from the domesticated,
and, according to Cuvier, the fossil cave-bear from every recent
species of bear, whilst, according to Roulin, the pig, which has
become wild in America, and regained a resemblance to the
wild boar, is thus distinguished from the same animal in the
domesticated state, as is the chamois from the goat ; and^ lastly,
the bull-dog, which is characterised by its large bones and
strongly-developed muscles from every other kind of dog. The
estimation of the facial angle, the determination of which,
according to Professor Owen, is also difficult in the great apes,
owing to the very prominent supra-orbital ridges, in the present
case is rendered still more difficult from the absence both of the
auditory opening and of the nasal spine. But if the proper
horizontal position of the skull be taken from the remaining
portions of the orbital plates, and the ascending line made to
touch the surface of the frontal bone behind the prominent
supra-orbital ridges, the facial angle is not found to exceed 56°. 1
Unfortunately, no portions of the facial bones, whose conforma-
tion is so decisive as regards the form and expression of the
head, have been preserved. The cranial capacity, compared
with the uncommon strength of the corporeal frame, would seem
to indicate a small cerebral development. The skull, as it is,
holds about 31 ounces of millet-seed ; and as, from the propor-
tionate size of the wanting bones, the whole cranial cavity
should have about 6 ounces more added, the contents, were it
perfect, may be taken at 37 ounces. Tiedemann assigns, as the
cranial contents in the Negro, 40, 38, and 35 ounces. The
cranium holds rather more than 36 ounces of water which

1 Estimating the facial angle in the way suggested, on the
cast I should place it at 64° to 67°.— G. B.
176

178 HUMAN FOSSILS III

corresponds to a capacity of 1033 '24 cubic centimetres. Huschke
estimates the cranial contents of a Negress at 1127 cubic centi-
metres ; of an old Negro at 1146 cubic centimetres. The
capacity of the Malay skulls, estimated by water, equalled 36,
33 ounces, whilst in the diminutive Hindoos it falls to as little
as 27 ounces."

After comparing the Neanderthal cranium with
many others, ancient and modern, Professor
Schaaffhausen concludes thus : —

"But the human bones and cranium from the Neanderthal
exceed all the rest in those peculiarities of conformation which
lead to the conclusion of their belonging to a barbarous and
savage race. Whether the cavern in which they were found,
unaccompanied with any trace of human art, were the place of
their interment, or whether, like the bones of extinct animals
elsewhere, they had been washed into it, they may still be re-
garded as the most ancient memorial of the early inhabitants of
Europe."

Mr. Busk, the translator of Dr. Schaaffhausen's
paper, has enabled us to form a very vivid con-
ception of the degraded character of the Nean-
derthal skull, by p]acing side by side with its out-
line, that of the skull of a Chimpanzee, drawn to
the same absolute size.

Some time after the publication of the trans-
lation of Professor Schaaffhausen's Memoir, I was
led to study the cast of the Neanderthal cranium
with more attention than I had previously
bestowed upon it, in consequence of wishing to
supply Sir Charles Lyell with a diagram, exhibiting
the special peculiarities of this skull, as compared

Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 179

with other human skulls. In order to do this it
was necessary to identify, with precision, those
points in the skulls compared which corresponded
anatomically. Of these points, the glabella was
obvious enough ; but when I had distinguished
another, denned by the occipital protuberance and
superior semi-circular line, and had placed the
outline of the Neanderthal skull against that of
the Engis skull, in such a position that the
glabella and occipital protuberance of both were
intersected by the same straight line, the difference
was so vast and the flattening of the Neanderthal
skull so prodigious (compare Figs. 23 and 25 A),
that I at first imagined I must have fallen into
some error. And I was the more inclined to sus-
pect this, as, in ordinary human skulls, the
occipital protuberance and superior semicircular
curved line on the exterior of the occiput corre-
spond pretty closely with the " lateral sinuses " and
the line of attachment of the tentorium internally.
But on the tentorium rests, as I have said in the
preceding Essay, the posterior lobe of the brain ;
and hence, the occipital protuberance, and the
curved line in question, indicate, approximately,
the lower limits of that lobe. Was it possible for
a human being to have the brain thus flattened
and depressed ; or, on .the other hand, had the
muscular ridges shifted their position ? In order
to solve these doubts, and to decide the question
whether the great supraciliary projections did, or

180

HUMAN FOSSILS

III

FIG. 25. — The skull from the Neanderthal cavern. A, side,
outlines from camera lucida drawings, one half the natural size,
photographs, a glabella ; b occipital protuberance ; d lamb-
did not, arise from the development of the frontal
sinuses, I requested Sir Charles Lyell to be so
good as to obtain for me from Dr. Fuhlrott,

Ill

THE NEANDERTHAL MAN

181

the possessor of the skull, answers to certain
queries, and if possible a cast, or at any rate
drawings, or photographs, of the interior of the
skull.

Dr. Fuhlrott replied, with a courtesy and

B, front, and C, top view. One half the natural size. The
by Mr. Busk : the details from the cast and from Dr. Fulilvott's
doidal suture.

readiness for which I am infinitely indebted to
him, to my inquiries, and furthermore sent three
excellent photographs. One of these gives a side

182 HUMAN FOSSILS HI

view of the skull, and from it Fig. 25 A has been
shaded. The second (Fig. 26 A) exhibits the
wide openings of the frontal sinuses upon the
inferior surface of the frontal part of the skull,
into which, Dr. Fuhlrott writes, " a probe may be
introduced to the depth of an inch," and demon-
strates the great extension of the thickened
supraciliary ridges beyond the cerebral cavity.
The third, lastly (Fig. 26 B), exhibits the edge
and the interior of the posterior, or occipital, part
of the skull, and shows very clearly the two
depressions for the lateral sinuses, sweeping
inwards towards the middle line of the roof of the
skull, to form the longitudinal sinus. It was clear,
therefore, that I had not erred in my interpre-
tation, and that the posterior lobe of the brain of
the Neanderthal man must have been as much
flattened as I suspected it to be.

In truth, the Neanderthal cranium has most
extraordinary characters. It has an extreme
length of 8 inches, while its breadth is only 5*75
inches, or, in other words, its length is to its
breadth as 100 : 72. It is exceedingly depressed,
measuring only about 3'4 inches from the glabello-
occipital line to the vertex. The longitudinal arc,
measured in the same way as in the Engis skull,
is 12 inches; the transverse arc cannot be exactly
ascertained, in consequence of the absence of the
temporal bones, but was probably about the same,
and certainly exceeded 10 J inches. The bori

in

THE NEANDERTHAL MAN

183

zontal circumference is 23 inches. But this great
circumference arises largely from the vast de-

FiG. 26. — Drawings from Dr. Fuhlrott's photographs of parts of
the interior of the Neanderthal cranium. A view of the under
and inner surface of the frontal region, showing the inferior
apertures of the frontal sinuses (a). B corresponding view of
the occipital region of the skull, showing the impressions of the
lateral sinuses (aa}.

velopment of the supraciliary ridges, though the
perimeter of the brain case itself is not small.

184* HUMAN FOSSILS III

The large supraciliary ridges give the forehead a
far more retreating appearance than its internal
cpntour would bear out.

''•'To an anatomical eye, the posterior part of the
skull is even more striking than the anterior.
The occipital protuberance occupies the extreme
posterior end of the skull, when the glabello-
occipital line is made horizontal, and so far from
any part of the occipital region extending beyond
it, this region of the skull slopes oblique]y upward
and forward, so that the lambdoidal suture is
situated well upon the upper surface of the
cranium. At the same time, notwithstanding the
great length of the skull, the sagittal suture is
remarkably short (4J inches), and the squamosal
suture is very straight.

In reply to my questions Dr. Fuhlrott writes
that the occipital bone " is in a state of perfect
preservation as far as the upper semicircular line,
which is a very strong ridge, linear at its ex-
tremities, but enlarging towards the middle, where
it forms two ridges (bourrelets), united by a linear
continuation, which is slightly depressed in the
middle."

"Below the left ridge the bone exhibits an
obliquely inclined surface, six lines (French) long,
and twelve lines wide/'

This last must be the surface, the contour of
which is shown in Fig. 25 A, below &. It is
particularly interesting, as it suggests that,

Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN 185

notwithstanding the flattened condition of the
occiput, the posterior cerebral lobes must have
projected considerably beyond the cerebellum,
and as it constitutes one among several points of
similarity between the Neanderthal cranium and
certain Australian skulls.

Such are the two best known forms of human
cranium, which have been found in what may be
fairly termed a fossil state. Can either be shown
to fill up or diminish, to any appreciable extent,
the structural interval which exists between Man
and the man-like apes ? Or, on the other hand,
does neither depart more widely from the average
structure of the human cranium, than normally
formed skulls of men are known to do at the
present day ?

It is impossible to form any opinion on these
questions, without some preliminary acquaintance
with the range of variation exhibited by human
structure in general — a subject which has been
but imperfectly studied, while even of what is
known, my limits will necessarily allow me to give
only a very imperfect sketch.

The student of anatomy is perfectly well aware
that there is not a single organ of the human
body the structure of which does not vary, to a
greater or less extent, in different individuals.
The skeleton varies in the proportions, and even
to a certain extent in the connexions, of its con-

186 HUMAN FOSSILS III

stituent bones. The muscles winch move the
bones vary largely in their attachments. The
varieties in the mode of distribution of the
arteries are carefully classified, on account of the
practical importance of a knowledge of their
shiftings to the surgeon. The characters of the
brain vary immensely, nothing being less constant
than the form and size of the cerebral hemispheres,
and the richness of the convolutions upon their
surface, while the most changeable structures of
all in the human brain are exactly those on which
the unwise attempt has been made to base the
distinctive characters of humanity, viz. the pos-
terior cornu of the lateral ventricle, the hippo-
campus minor, and the degree of projection of the
posterior lobe beyond the cerebellum. Finally,
as all the world knows, the hair and skin of human
beings may present the most extraordinary diver-
sities in colour and in texture.

So far as our present knowledge goes, the majority
of the structural varieties to which allusion is
here made, are individual. The ape-like ar-
rangement of certain muscles which is occasion-
ally met with1 in the white races of mankind, is
not known to be more common among Negroes
or Australians : nor because the brain of the
Hottentot Venus was found to be smoother, to
have its convolutions more symmetrically disposed,

1 See an excellent Essay by Mr. Church on the Myology of
the Orang, in the Natural History Review for 1861.

FIG. 27.— Side and front views of the round and orthognathous
skull of a Calmuck after Von Baer. One- third the natural size.

188 HUMAN FOSSILS HI

and to be, so far, more ape-like than that of
ordinary Europeans, are we justified in concluding
a like condition of the brain to prevail universally
among the lower races of mankind, however
probable that conclusion may be.

We are, in fact, sadly wanting in information
respecting the disposition of the soft and de-
structible organs of every Race of Mankind but
our own ; and even of the skeleton, our Museums
are lamentably deficient in every part but the
cranium. Skulls enough there are, and since the
time when Blumenbach and Camper first called
attention to the marked and singular differences
which they exhibit, skull collecting and skull
measuring has been a zealously pursued branch of
Natural History, and the results obtained have
been arranged and classified by various writers,
among whom the late active and able Retzius
must always be the first named.

Human skulls have been found to differ from
one another, not merely in their absolute size and
in the absolute capacity of the brain case, but in
the proportions which the diameters of the latter
bear to one another; in the relative size of
the bones of the face (and more particularly
of the jaws and teeth) as compared with those of
the skull ; in the degree to which the upper jaw
(which is of course followed by the lower) is thrown
backwards and downwards under the forepart of
the brain case, or forwards and upwards in front of

Ill VARIATIONS: HUMAN SKULL 189

and beyond it. They differ further in the relations
of" the transverse diameter of the face, taken through
the cheek bones, to the transverse diameter of the
skull ; in the more rounded or more gable-like
form of the roof of the skull, and in the degree to
which the hinder part of the skull is flattened or
projects beyond the ridge, into and below which
the muscles of the neck are inserted.

In some skulls" the brain case may be said to be
" round" the extreme length not exceeding the
extreme breadth by a greater proportion than 100
to 80, while the difference may be much less.1
Men possessing such skulls were termed by
Retzius " brachyccphalic" and the skull of a
Calmuck, of which a front and side view (reduced
outline copies of which are given in Figure 27) are
depicted by Von Baer in his excellent " Crania
selecta," affords a very admirable sample of that
kind of skull. Other skulls, such as that of a
Negro copied in Fig. 28 from Mr. Busk's " Crania
typica," have a very different, greatly elongated
form, and may be termed " oblong." In this skull
the extreme length is to the extreme breadth as
100 to not more than 67, and the transverse
diameter of the human skull may fall below even
this proportion. People having such skulls were
called by Retzius " dolichocephalic"

The most cursory glance at the side views of

1 In no normal human skull does the breadth of the brain-
case exceed its length.

FIG. 28.— Oblong and prognathous skull of a Negro ; side and
front views. One-third of the natural size.

Ill VARIATIONS: HUMAN SKULL 101

these two skulls will suffice to prove that they
differ, in another respect, to a very striking extent.
The profile of the face of the Calmuck is almost
vertical, the facial bones being thrown downwards
and under the fore part of the skull. The
profile of the face of the Negro, on the other hand,
is singularly inclined, the front part of the jaws
projecting far forward beyond the level of the fore
part of the skull. In the former case the skull is
'said to be " ortliognathous " or straight-jawed ; in
the latter, it is called "prognathous" a term which
has been rendered, with more force than elegance,
by the Saxon equivalent, — "snouty."

Various methods have been devised in order to
express with some accuracy the degree of prog-
nathism or orthognathism of any given skull;
most of these methods being essentially modifica-
tions of that devised by Peter Camper, in order to
attain what he called the " facial angle.'*

But a little consideration will show that any
" facial angle " that has been devised, can be com-
petent to express the structural modifications
involved in prognathism and orthognathism, only
in a rough and general sort of way. For the
lines, the intersection of which forms the facial
angle, are drawn through points of the skull, the
position of each of which is modified by a number
of circumstances, so that the angle obtained is a
complex resultant of all these circumstances, and
is not the expression of any one definite organic
relation of the parts of the skull.

192 HUMAN FOSSILS

III

I have arrived at the conviction that no com-
parison of crania is worth very much that is not
founded upon the establishment of a relatively
fixed base line, to which the measurements, in all
cases, must be referred. Nor do I think it is a
very difficult matter to decide what that base line
should be. The parts of the skull, like those of
the rest of the animal framework, are developed
in succession : the base of the skull is formed
before its sides and roof; it is converted into
cartilage earlier and more completely than the
sides and roof: and the cartilaginous base ossifies,
and becomes soldered into one piece long before
the roof. I conceive then that the base of the
skull may be demonstrated developmentally to be
its relatively fixed part, the roof and sides being
relatively movable.

The same truth is exemplified by the study of
the modifications which the skull undergoes in
ascending from the lower animals up to man.

In such a mammal as a Beaver (Fig. 29), a line
(a 1} drawn through the bones, termed basiocci-
pital, basisphenoid, and presphenoid, is very long
in proportion to the extreme length of the cavity
which contains the cerebral hemispheres (g h).
The plane of the occipital foramen (h c) forms a
slightly acute angle with this " basicranial axis,"
while the plane of the tentorium (i T) is inclined
at rather more than 90° to the " basicranial axis " ;
and so is the plane of the perforated plate (a d),
by which the filaments of the olfactory nerve

FIG. 29. — Longitudinal and verticil sections of the skulls of
a Beaver (Castor Canadensis}y a Lemur (L. Catta\ and a Baboon
(Cynoccphalus Papio), a b, the basicranial axis ; b c, the occipital
plane j i Tt the tentorial plane ; a d, the olfactory plane ; / e,
the basifacial axis ; cba, occipital angle ; Tia, tentorial angle ;
dab, olfactory angle ; efb, cranio-facial angle ; g h, extreme
length of the cavity which lodges the cerebral hemispheres or
" cerebral length." The length of the basicranial axis as to this
length, or, in other words, the proportional length of the line
g h to that of a b taken as 100, in the three skulls, is as

177

194 HUMAN FOSSILS m

follows :— Beaver, 70 to 100 ; Lemur, 119 to 100 ; Baboon. 144
to 100. In an adult male Gorilla the cerebral length is as 170
to the basicrauial axis taken as 100, in the Negro (Fig. 30) as
236 to 100. In the Constantinople skull (Fig. 30) it is as 266
to 100. The difference between the highest Ape's skull and the
lowest Man's is therefore very strikingly brought out by these
measurements.

la the diagram of the Baboon's skull the dotted lines d} d?t
&e., give the angles of the Lemur's and Beaver's skull, as laid
down upon the basicranial axis of the Baboon. The line a b has
the same length in each diagram.

leave the skull. Again, a line drawn through the
axis of the face, between the bones called ethmoid
and vomer — the " basifacial axis " (/. e.) forms an
exceedingly obtuse angle, where, when produced,
it cuts the " basicranial axis."

If the angle made by the line I c with a 6, be
called the " occipital angle," and the angle made
by the line a d with a b be termed the " olfactory
angle" and that made by i T with a b the
" tentorial angle " then all these, in the mammal
in question, are nearly right angles, varying
between 80° and 110°. The angle e f I, or that
made by the cranial with the facial axis, and
which may be termed the " cranio-facial angle," is
extremely obtuse, amounting, in the case of the
Beaver, to at least 150°.

But if a series of sections of mammalian skulls,
intermediate between a Rodent and a Man (Fig.
29), be examined, it will be found that in the
higher crania the basi-cranial axis becomes shorter
lelatively to the cerebral length; that the " olfac-

HI MAMMALIAN SKULLS 10o

tory angle " and " occipital angle " become more
obtuse; and that the " cranio-facial angle," be-
comes more acute by the bending down, as it
were, of the facial axis upon the cranial axis. At
the same time, the roof of the cranium becomes
more and more arched, to allow of the increasing
height of the cerebral hemispheres, which is
eminently characteristic of man, as well as of that
backward extension, beyond the cerebellum, which
reaches its maximum in the South American Mon-
keys. So that, at last, in the human skull (Fig.
30), the cerebral length is between twice and
thrice as great as the length of the basicranial
axis ; the olfactory plane is 20° or 30° on the under
side of that axis ; the occipital angle, instead of
being less than 90°, is as much as 150° or 160° ; the
cranio-facial angle may be 90° or less, and ' the
vertical height of the skull may have a large
proportion to its length.

It will be obvious, from an inspection of the
liagrams, that the basicranial axis is, in the
ascending series of Mammalia, a relatively fixed
ine, on which the bones of the sides and roof of
:he cranial cavity, and of the face, may be said to
-evolve downwards and forwards or backwards,
tccording to their position. The arc described by
my one bone or plane, however, is not by any
neans always in proportion to the arc described
>y another.
Now comes the important question, can we

FIG. 30. — Sections of orthognathous (light contour) and prog-
nathous (dark contour) skulls, one-third of the natural size, a b,
Basicranial axis ; b ct bf c', plane of the occipital foramen ; d d\
hinder end of the palatine bone ; e e't front end of the upper
jaw ; T T't insertion of the tentorium.

Ill VARIATIONS: HUMAN SKULLS 197

discern, between the lowest and the highest forms
of the human cranium anything answering, in
however slight a degree, to this revolution of the
side and roof bones of the skull upon the basi-
cranial axis observed upon so great a scale in the
mammalian series ? Numerous observations lead
me to believe that we must answer this question
in the affirmative.

The diagrams in Figure 30 are reduced from
very carefully made diagrams of sections of four
skulls, two round and orthognathous, two long and
prognathous, taken longitudinally and vertically,
through the middle. The sectional diagrams have
then been superimposed, in such a manner, that
the basal axes of the skulls coincide by theii
anterior ends, and in their direction. The devia-
tions of the rest of the contours (which represent
the interior of the skulls only) show the differ-
ences of the skulls from one another, when these
axes are regarded as relatively fixed lines.

The dark contours are those of an Australian
and of a Negro skull: the light contours are
those of a Tartar skull, in the Museum of the
Royal College of Surgeons; and of a well
developed round skull from a cemetery in
Constantinople, of uncertain race, in my own
possession.

It appears, at once, from these views, that the
prognathous skulls, so far as their jaws are con-
cerned, do really differ from the orthognathous in

198 HUMAN FOSSILS in

much the same way as, though to a far less degree
than, the skulls of the lower mammals differ from
those of Man. Furthermore, the plane of the
occipital foramen (b c) forms a somewhat smaller
angle with the axis in these particular prognathous
skulls than in the orthognathons; and the like
may be slightly true of the perforated plate of the
ethmoid — though this point is not so clear. But
it is singular to remark that, in another respect,
the prognathous skulls are less ape-like than the
orthognathous, the cerebral cavity projecting de-
cidedly more beyond the anterior end of the axis
in the prognathous, than in the orthognathous,
skulls.

It will be observed that these diagrams reveal
an immense range of variation in the capacity and
relative proportion to the cranial axis, of the
different regions of the cavity which contains the
brain, in the different skulls. Nor is the differ-
ence in the extent to which the cerebral overlaps
the cerebellar cavity less singular. A round
skull (Fig. 30, Const.} may have a greater posterior
cerebral projection than a long one (Fig. 30,
Negro).

Until human crania have been largely worked
out in a manner similar to that here suggested —
until it shall be an opprobrium . to an ethnological
collection to possess a single skull which is not
bisected longitudinally — until the angles and
measurements here mentioned, together with a

Ill VARIATIONS: HUMAN SKULLS 199

number of others of which I cannot speak in
this place, are determined, and tabulated with
reference to the basi cranial axis as unity, for large
numbers of skulls of the different races of Mankind,
I do not think we shall have any very safe basis
for that ethnological craniology which aspires to
give the anatomical characters of the crania of the
different Races of Mankind.

At present, I believe that the general outlines
of what may be safely said upon that subject may
be summed up in a very few words. Draw a line
on a globe, from the Gold Coast in Western Africa
to the steppes of Tartary. At the southern and
western end of that line there live the most
dolichocephalic, prognathous, curly-haired, dark-
skinned of men — the true Negroes. At the
northern and eastern end of the same line there
live the most brachycephalic, orthognathous,
straight-haired,yellow-skinned of men — the Tartars
and Gal mucks. The two ends of this imaginary
line are indeed, so to speak, ethnological antipodes.
A line drawn at right angles, or nearly so, to this
polar line through Europe and Southern Asia to
Hindostan, would give us a sort of equator, around
which round-headed, oval-headed, and oblong-
headed, prognathous and orthognathous, fair and
dark races — but none possessing the excessively
marked characters of Calmuck or Negro — group
themselves.

It is worthy of notice that the regions of the

200 HUMAN FOSSILS III

antipodal races are antipodal in climate, the
greatest contrast the world affords, perhaps, being
that between the damp, hot, steaming, alluvial
coast plains of the West Coast of Africa and the
arid, elevated steppes and plateaux of Central Asia,
bitterly cold in winter, and as far from the sea as
any part of the world can be.

From Central Asia eastward to the Pacific
Islands and subcontinents on the one hand, and to
America on the other, brachycephaly and orthog-
nathism gradually diminish, and are replaced by
dolichocephaly and prognathism, less, however, on
the American Continent (throughout the whole
length of which a rounded type of skull prevails
largely, but not exclusively) 1 than in the Pacific
region, where, at length, on the Australian Con-
tinent and in the adjacent islands, the oblong
skull, the projecting jaws, and the dark skin re-
appear ; with so much departure, in other respects,
from the Negro type, that ethnologists assign to
these people the special title of " Negritoes."

The Australian skull is remarkable for its
narrowness and for the thickness of its walls,
especially in the region of the supraciliary ridge,
which is frequently, though not by any means
invariably, solid throughout, the frontal sinuses re-
maining undeveloped. The nasal depression,

1 See Dr, D. Wilson's valuable paper "On the supposed
prevalence of one Cranial Type throughout the American
Aborigines." — Canadian Journal, Vol. II. 1857.

Ill AUSTRALIAN SKULLS 201

again, is extremely sudden, so that the brows over-
hang and give the countenance a particularly
lowering, threatening expression. The occipital
region of the skull, also, not unfrequently becomes
less prominent ; so that it not only fails to project
beyond a line drawn perpendicular to the hinder
extremity of the glabello-occipital line, but even, in
some cases, begins to shelve away from it, forwards,
almost immediately. In consequence of this cir-
cumstance, the parts of the occipital bone which lie
above and below the tuberosity make a much
more acute angle with one another than is usual,
whereby the hinder part of the base of the skull
appears obliquely truncated. Many Australian
skulls have a considerable height, quite equal to
that of the average of any other race, but there
are others in which the cranial roof becomes re-
markably depressed, the skull, at the same time,
elongating so much that, probably, its capacity is
not diminished. The majority of skulls possessing
these characters, which I have seen, are from the
neighbourhood of Port Adelaide in South Australia,
and have been used by the natives as water
vessels ; to which end the face has been knocked
away, and a string passed through the vacuity and
the occipital foramen, so that the skull was sus-
pended by the greater part of its basis.

Figure 31 represents the contour of a skull of
this kind from Western Port, with the jaw
attached, and of the Neanderthal skull, both

202 HUMAN FOSSILS III

reduced to one-third of the size of nature. A small
additional amount of flattening and lengthening,
with a corresponding increase of the supraciliary

FIG. 31. — An Australian skull from Western Port, in the
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, with the contour
of the Neanderthal skulL Both reduced to one-third the
natural size.

ridge, would convert the Australian brain case
into a form identical with that of the aberrant
fossil.

And now, to return to the fossil skulls, and to
the rank which they occupy among, or beyond,

Ill T1IE FOSSIL SKULLS 203

these existing varieties of cranial conformation. In
the first place, I must remark, that, as Professor
Schmerling well observed (supra, p. 161) in com-
menting upon the Engis skull, the formation of a
safe judgment upon the question is greatly
hindered ty the absence of the jaws from both the
crania, so that there is no means of deciding, with
certainty, whether they were more or less prog-
nathous than the lower existing races of mankind.
And yet, as we have seen, it is more in this respect
than any other, that human skulls vary, towards
and from, the brutal type — the brain case of an
average dolichocephalic European differing far less
from that of a Negro, for example, than his jaws
do. In the absence of the jaws, then, any
judgment on the relations of the fossil skulls to
recent Races must be accepted with a certain
reservation.

But taking the evidence as it stands, and
turning first to the Engis skull, I confess I can
find no character in the remains of that cranium
which, if it were a recent skull, would give any
trustworthy clue as to the Race to which it might
appertain. Its contours and measurements agree
very well with those of some Australian skulls
which I have examined — and especially has it a
tendency towards that occipital flattening, to the
great extent of which, in some Australian skulls, I
have alluded. But all Australian skulls do not
present this flattening, and the supraciliary ridge

204 HUMAN FOSSILS m

of the Engis skull is quite unlike that of the
typical Australians.

On the other hand, its measurements agree
equally well with those of some European skulls.
And assuredly, there is no mark of degradation
about any part of its structure. It is, in fact, a
fair average human skull, which might have
belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained
the thoughtless brains of a savage.

The case of the Neanderthal skull is very differ-
ent. Under whatever aspect we view this
cranium, whether we regard its vertical depression,
the enormous thickness of its supraciliary ridges,
its sloping occiput, or its long and straight
squamosal suture, we meet with ape-like charac-
ters, stamping it as the most pithecoid of human
crania yet discovered. But Professor Schaaff-
hausen states (supra, p. 178), that the cranium, in
its present condition, holds 1033'24 cubic centi-
metres of water, or about 63 cubic inches, and as
the entire skull could hardly have held less than
an additional 12 cubic inches, its capacity may be
estimated at about 75 cubic inches, which is the
average capacity given by Morton for Polynesian
and Hottentot skulls.

So large a mass of brain as this, would alone
suggest that the pithecoid tendencies, indicated by
this skull, did not extend deep into the organiza-
tion; and this conclusion is borne out by the
dimensions of the other bones of the skeleton

Ill

PITHECOID CHARACTERS 205

given by Professor Schaaffhausen, which show that
the absolute height and relative proportions of the
limbs, were quite those of an European of middle
stature. The bones are indeed stouter, but this
and the great development of the muscular ridges
noted by Dr. Schaaffhausen, are characters to be
expected in savages. The Patagonians, exposed
without shelter or protection to a climate possibly
not very dissimilar from that of Europe at the
time during which the Neanderthal man lived,
are remarkable for the stoutness of their limb
bones.

In no sense, then, can the Neanderthal bones be
regarded as the remains of a human being inter-
mediate between Men and Apes. At most, they
demonstrate the existence of a Man whose skull
may be said to revert somewhat towards the pithe-
coid type — just as a Carrier, or a Pouter, or a
Tumbler, may sometimes put on the plumage of
its primitive stock, the Columba lima. And
indeed, though truly the most pithecoid of known
human skulls, the Neanderthal cranium is by no
means so isolated as it appears to be at first, but
forms, in reality, the extreme term of a series
leading gradually from it to the highest and best
developed of human crania. On the one hand, it
is closely approached by the flattened Australian
skulls, of which I have spoken, from which other
Australian forms lead us gradually up to skulls
having very much the type of the Engis cranium.

PIG. 32. — Ancient Danish skull from a tumulus at Borreby ;
one-third of the natural size. From a camera lucida drawing
ly Mr. Busk.

Ill ANCIENT DANISH SKULLS 207

And, on the other hand, it is even more closely
affined to the skulls of certain ancient people who
inhabited Denmark during the " stone period," and
were probably either contemporaneous with, or
later than, the makers of the " refuse heaps," or
" Kjokkenm'dddings " of that country.

The correspondence between the longitudinal
contour of the Neanderthal skull and that of some
of those skulls from the tumuli at Borreby, very
accurate drawings of which have been made by
Mr. Busk, is very close. The occiput is quite as
retreating, the supraciliary ridges are nearly as
prominent, and the skull is as low. Furthermore,
the Borreby skull resembles the Neanderthal form
more closely than any of the Australian skulls do,
by the much more rapid retrocession of the fore-
head. On the other hand, the Borreby skulls are
all somewhat broader, in proportion to their length,
than the Neanderthal skull, while some attain
that proportion of breadth to length (80 : 100)
which constitutes brachycephaly.1

In conclusion, I may say, that the fossil remains
of Man hitherto discovered do not seem to me to

P For a further discussion of the characters of the Neanderthal
skull, see "Natural History Review," 1864. I there say (p.
443) : "That the Neanderthal skull exhibits the lowest type of
human cranium at present known, so far as it presents certain
pithecoid characters in a more exaggerated form than any
other: but that, inasmuch as a complete series of gradations
can be found, among recent human skulls, between it and the
best developed forms, there is no ground for separating its pos-

208 HUMAN FOSSILS

II!

take us appreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid
form, by the modification of which he has, probably,
become what he is. And considering what is now
known of the most ancient Races of men ; seeing
that they fashioned flint axes and flint knives and
bone-skewers, of much the same pattern as those
fabricated by the lowest savages at the present
day, and that we have every reason to believe the
habits and modes of living of such people to have
remained the same from the time of the Mammoth
and the tichorhine Rhinoceros till now, I do not
know that this result is other than might be
expected.

Where, then, must we look for primaeval Man ?
Was the oldest Homo sapiens pliocene or miocene,
or yet more ancient ? In still older strata do the
fossilized bones of an ape more anthropoid, or a
Man more pithecoid, than any yet known await
the researches of some unborn paleontologist ?

Time will show. But, in the meanwhile, if any
form of the doctrine of progressive development is
correct, we must extend by long epochs the most
liberal estimate that has yet been made of the
antiquity of Man.

sessor specifically, still less genetically, from Homo sap-fen*.
At present, we have no sufficient warranty for declaring it to
be either the type of a distinct race, or a member of any existing
one ; nor do the anatomical characters of the skull justify any
conclusion as to the age to which it belongs." See also the
essay on the Aryan question in this volume. 1894.]

IV

ON THE METHODS AND EESULTS OF
ETHNOLOGY

[1865]

ETHNOLOGY is the science which determines
the distinctive characters of the persistent modifi-
cations of mankind ; which ascertains the dis-
tribution of those modifications in present and
past times, and seeks to discover the causes, or
conditions of existence, both of the modifications
and of their distribution. I say " persistent "
modifications, because, unless incidentally, ethno-
logy has nothing to do with chance and transitory
peculiarities of human structure. And I speak
of " persistent modifications " or " stocks " rather
than of " varieties," or " races/' or " species/1
because each of these last well-known terms
implies, on the part of its employer, a preconceived
opinion touching one of those problems, the
solution of which is the ultimate object of the

178

210 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY IV

science ; and in regard to which, therefore,
ethnologists are especially bound to keep their
minds open and their judgments freely balanced.

Ethnology, as thus denned, is a branch of
ANTHROPOLOGY, the great science which un-
ravels the complexities of human structure ;
traces out the relations of man to other animals ;
studies all that is especially human in the mode
in which man's complex functions are performed ;
and searches after the conditions which have
determined his presence in the world. And
anthropology is a section of ZOOLOGY, which
again is the animal half of BIOLOGY — the science
of life and living things.

Such is the position of ethnology, such are the
objects of the ethnologist. The paths or methods,
by following which he may hope to reach his
goal, are diverse. He may work at man from the
point of view of the pure zoologist, and investigate
the anatomical and physiological peculiarities of
Negroes, Australians, or Mongolians, just as he
would inquire into those of pointers, terriers, and
turnspits, — " persistent modifications " of man's
almost universal companion. Or he may seek
aid from researches into the most human mani-
festation of humanity — Language; and assuming
that what is true of speech is true of the speaker
— a hypothesis as questionable in science as it is
in ordinary life — he may apply to mankind them-
selves the conclusions drawn from a search-

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 211

ing analysis of their words and grammatical
forms.

Or, the ethnologist may turn to the study of
the practical life of men; and relying upon y the
inherent conservatism and small inventiveness
of untutored mankind,^ he may hope to discover
in manners and customs, or in weapons, dwellings,
and other handiwork, a clue to the origin of "the ,
resemblances and differences of nations.- Or, he
may resort to that kind of evidence which is
yielded by History proper, and consists of the
beliefs of men concerning past events, embodied
in traditional, or in written, testimony. Or, when
that thread breaks, Archaeology, which is the
interpretation of the unrecorded remains of man's
works, belonging to the epoch since the world has
reached its present condition, may still guide him.
And, when even the dim light of archeology
fades, there yet remains Palaeontology, which, in
these latter years, has brought to daylight once
more the exuvia of ancient populations, whose
world was not our world, who have been buried
in river beds immemorially dry, or carried by the
rush of waters into caves, inaccessible to inundation
since the dawn of tradition.

Along each, or all, of these paths the ethnologist
may press towards his goal ; but they are not
equally straight, or sure, or easy to tread. The
way of palaeontology has but just been laid open
to us. Archaeological and historical investigation?

212 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

are of great value for all those peoples whose
ancient state has differed widely from their present
condition, and who have the good or evil fortune
to possess a history. But on taking a broad
survey of the world, it is astonishing how few
nations present either condition. Respecting
five-sixths of the persistent modifications of man-
kind, history and archaeology are absolutely silent.
For half the rest, they might as well be silent
for anything that is to be made of their testimony.
And, finally, when the question arises as to what
was the condition of mankind more than a paltry
two or three thousand years ago, history and
archaeology are, for the most part, mere dumb
dogs. What light does either of these branches
of knowledge throw on the past of the man of the
New World, if we except the Central Americans
and the Peruvians ; on that of the Africans, save
those of the Valley of the Nile and a fringe of
the Mediterranean ; on that of all the Polynesian,
Australian, and central Asiatic peoples, the former
of whom probably, and the last certainly, were,
at the dawn of history, substantially what they
are now ? While thankfully accepting what
history has to give him, therefore, the ethnologist
must not look for too much from her.

Is more to be expected from inquiries into the
customs and handicrafts of man ? It is to be
feared not. In reasoning from identity of custom to
identity of stock>the difficulty always obtrudes itself,

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 213

that the minds of men being everywhere similar,
differing in quality and quantity but not in kind
of faculty, like circumstances must tend to produce
like contrivances ; at any rate, so long as the need
to be met and conquered is of a very simple kind.
That two nations use calabashes or shells for
drinking-vessels, or that they employ spears, or
clubs, or swords and axes of stone and metal as
weapons and implements, cannot be regarded as
evidence that these two nations had a common
origin, or even that intercommunication ever took
place between them ; seeing that the convenience
of using calabashes or shells for such purposes,
and the advantage of poking an enemy with a
sharp stick, or hitting him with a heavy one,
must be early forced by nature upon the mind of
even the stupidest savage. And when he had
found out the use of a stick, he would need no
prompting to discover the value of a chipped or
whetted stone, or of an angular piece of native
metal, for the same object. On the other hand,
it may be doubted, whether the chances are not
greatly against independent peoples arriving at
the manufacture of a boomerang, or of a bow ;
which last, if one comes to think of it, is a rather
complicated apparatus ; and the tracing of the
distribution of inventions as complex as these,
and of such strange customs as betel -chewing and
tobacco-smoking, may afford valuable ethnological
hints. j

214 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY n

Since the time of Leibnitz, and guided by such
men as Humboldt, Abel Remusat, and Klaproth,
Philology has taken far higher ground. Thus
Prichard affirms that " the history of nations,
termed Ethnology, must be mainly founded on
the relations of their languages."

An eniment living philologer, August Schleicher,
in a recent essay, puts forward the claims of his
science still more forcibly : —

"If, however, language is the human /car* Qoxfo, the sug-
gestion arises whether it should not form the basis of any
scientific systematic arrangement of mankind ; whether the
foundation of the natural classification of the genus Homo
has not been discovered in it.

" How little constant are cranial peculiarities and other so-
called race characters ! Language, on the other hand, is
always a perfectly constant diagnostic. A German may occa-
sionally compete in hair and prognathism with a negro, but a
negro language will never be his mother tongue. Of how little
importance for mankind the so-called race characters are, is
shown by the fact that speakers of languages belonging to one
and the same linguistic family may exhibit the peculiarities
of various races. Thus the settled Osmanli Turk exhibits
Caucasian characters, whilst other so-caUed Tartaric Turks
exemplify the Mongol type. On the other hand, the Magyar
and the Basque do not depart in any essential physical peculi-
arity from the Indo -Germans, whilst the Magyar, "Basque, and
Indo-Germanic tongues are widely different. Apart from their
inconstancy, again, the so-called race characters can hardly
yield a scientifically natural system. Languages, on the other
hand, readily fall into a natural arrangement, like that of whicli
other vital products are susceptible, especially when viewed
from their morphological side. . . . The externally visible
itructure of the cerebral and facial skeletons, and of the body
generally, is less important than that no less material but

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 215

infinitely more delicate corporeal structure, the function of
which is speech. I conceive, therefore, that:the natural classi-
fication of languages, is also the natural classification of man-
kind. "> With language, moreover, all the higher manifestations
of man's vital activity are closely interwoven, so that these
receive due recognition in and by that of speech." l

Without the least desire to depreciate the
value of philology as an adjuvant to ethnology, I
must venture to doubt, with Rudolphi, Desmoulins,
Crawfurd, and others, its title to the leading
position claimed for it by the writers whom I have
just quoted. On the contrary, it seems to me
obvious that, though, in the absence of any
evidence to the contrary, unity of languages may
afford a certain presumption in favour of the
unity of stock of the peoples speaking those
languages, it cannot be held to prove that unity
of stock, unless philologers are prepared to demon-
strate, that no nation can lose its language and
acquire that of a distinct nation, without a change
of blood corresponding with the change of language.
Desmoulins long ago put this argument exceed-
ingly well : —

" Let us imagine tlie recurrence of one of those slow, 01
sudden, political revolutions, or say of those secular changes
which among different people and at different epochs have
annihilated historical monuments and even extinguished tradi-
tion In that case, the evidence, now so clear, that the negroes
of Hayti were slaves imported by a French colony, who, by the

1 August Schleicher. Ueber die Bedc.utung der Sprachefur die
Naturgeschichte des Mcnschen, pp. 16 — 18. Weimar, 1858.

216 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

very effect of the subordination involved in slavery lost their
own diverse languages and adopted that of their masters, would
vanish. And metaphysical philosophers, observing the
identity of Haytian French with that spoken on the shores
of the Seine and the Loire, would argue that the men of St.
Domingo with woolly heads, black and oily skins, small calves,
and slightly bent knees, are of the same race, descended from
the same parental stock, as the Frenchmen with silky brown,
chestnut, or fair hair, and white skins. For they would say,
their languages are more similar than French is to German or
Spanish." l

It must not be imagined that the case put by
Desmoulins is a merely hypothetical one. Events
precisely similar to the transport of a body of
Africans to the West India Islands, indeed, cannot
have happened among uncivilised races, but
similar results have followed the importation of
bodies of conquerors among an enslaved people
over and over again. There is hardly a country
in Europe in which two or more nations speaking
widely different tongues have not become inter-
mixed ; and there is hardly a language of Europe
of which we have any right to think that its
structure affords a just indication of the amount
of that intermixture.

As Dr. Latham has well said : —

"It is certain that the language of England is of Anglo-
Saxon origin, and that the remains of the original Keltic are
unimportant. It is by no means so certain that the blood of
Englishmen is equally Germanic. A vast amount of Kelticism,

1 Desmoulins, Histoire Naturelle des Eaces ffiimaincs, p. 345,
1826.

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 217

not found in our tongue, very probably exists in our pedigrees.
The ethnology of France is still more complicated. Many
writers make the Parisian a Roman on the strength of his
language ; whilst others make him a Kelt on the strength of
certain moral characteristics, combined with the previous
Kelticism of the original Gauls. Spanish and Portuguese, as
languages, are derivations from the Latin ; Spain and Portugal, as
countries, are Iberic, Latin, Gothic, and Arab, in different
proportions. Italian is modern Latin all the world over ; yet
surely thore must be much Keltic blood in Lombardy, and much
Etruscan intermixture in Tuscany.

" In the ninth century every man between the Elbe and the
Niemen spoke some Slavonic dialect ; they now nearly all speak
German. Surely the blood is less exclusively Gothic than the
speech."1

In other words, what philologer, if he had
nothing but the vocabulary and grammar of the
French and English languages to guide him,
would dream of the real causes of the unlikeness
of a Norman to a Provencal, of an Orcadian to a
Cornishman ? How readily might he be led to
suppose that the different climatal conditions to
which these speakers of one tongue have so long
been exposed, have caused their physical differ-
ences ; and how little would he suspect that these
are due (as we happen to know they are) to wide
differences of blood.

Few take duly into account the evidence which
exists as to the ease with which unlettered
savages gain or lose a language. Captain Erskine,
in his interesting " Journal of a Cruise among the
Islands of the Western Pacific," especially remarks
1 Latham, Man and his Migrations, p. 171.

218 METHODS AND KESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

upon the " avidity with which the inhabitants of
the polyglot islands of Melanesia, from New
Caledonia to the .Solomon Islands, adopt the
improvements of a more perfect language than
their own, which different causes and accidental
communication still continue to bring to them ; "
and he adds that " among the Melanesian islands
scarcely one was found by us which did not
possess, in some cases still imperfectly, the decimal
system of numeration in addition to their own, in
which they reckon only to five."

Yet how much philological reasoning in favour
1 of the affinity or diversity of two distinct peoples
'has been based on the mere comparison of
numerals !

But the most instructive example of the fallacy
which may attach to merely philological reason-
ings, is that afforded by the Feejeans, who are,
physically, so intimately connected with the ad-
jacent Negritos of New Caledonia, &c., that no
one can doubt to what stock they belong, and
who yet, in the form and substance of their
language, are Polynesian. The case is as remark-
able as if the Canary Islands should have been
found to be inhabited by negroes speaking Arabic,
or some other clearly Semitic dialect, as their
mother tongue. As it happens, the physical
peculiarities of the Feejeans are so striking, and
the conditions under which they live are so
similar to those of the Polynesians, that no one

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 219

has ventured to suggest that they are merely
modified Polynesians — a suggestion which could
otherwise certainly have been made. But if
languages may be thus transferred from one stock
to another, without any corresponding intermixture
of blood, what ethnological value has philology ?
— what security does unity of language afford us
that the speakers of that language may not have
sprung from two, or three, or a dozen, distinct
sources ?

Thus we come, at last, to the purely zoological
method, from which it is not unnatural to expect
more than from any other, seeing that, after all,
the problems of ethnology are simply those which
are presented to the zoologist by every widely
distributed animal he studies. The father of modern
zoology seems to have had no doubt upon this
point. At the twenty-eighth page of the standard
twelfth edition of the " Systema Naturae," in fact,
we find : —

I. PRIMATES.
Dentes primores incisores : supcriores IV. paralleli, mammae

p'dorales IL

1. HOMO. Nosce te ipsum.

Sapiens. 1. H. diurnus : varians cultura, loco.

Veriis. Tetrapus, mutus, hirsutus.

Americanus a. Rufus, cholericus, rectus — Pilis nigris, rectia,
crassis — Naribus patulis — Facie ephelitica :
Mento subimberbi.
Pertinax, contentus, liber. Pingit se lineis

dsedaleis rubris.
I&gttur Consuetudiue.

220 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

Europceus ft. Albus sanguineus torosus. Pilis flavescentibus,

prolixis.
Oculis coeruleis.
Levis, argu tus, inventor. Tegitur Vestimentis

arctis. Regitur Ritibus.

Asiaticus y. Luridus, melancholicus, rigidus. Pilis nigri-
cantibus. Oculis fuscis. Severus, fastuosus,
avarus. Tegitur Indumentis laxis.
Regitur Opinionibus.

Afer 8. Niger, phlegmaticus, laxus. Pilis atris, con-

tortuplicatis. Cute holosericea. Naso simo.
Labiis tumidis. Ftminis sinus pudoris.
Mammce lactantes prolixae.
Vafer, segnis, negligens. Ungit se pingui.
Regitur Arbitrio.

Monstrosus €. Solo (a) et arte (b c) variat. :

a. Alpini parvi, agiles, timidi.
Patagonici magni, segnes.

b. Monorchides ut minus fertiles : Hottentotti.
Juncece puellae, abdomine attenuate : Euro-

c. Macrocephali capiti conico : Chinenses.
Plagiocepliali capite antice compresso : Cana-
denses.

Turn a few pages further on in the same
volume, and there appears, with a fine impar-
tiality in the distribution of capitals and sub-
divisional headings : —

III. FERJE.
Denies primores superiores sex, acutiusculi. Canini solitarii.

12, CAN rs. Denies primores superiores VI. : laterales

longiores distantes : intermedii lobati. In-
feriores VI. : laterales lobati.

Laniarii solitarii, incurvati.

Molares VI. s. VII. (pluresve quam in reliquis.)

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 221

familiaris 1. C. cauda (sinistrorsum) recurvata

domesticus a. auriculis erectis, cauda subtus lanata.

saaax fi. auriculis pendulis, digito spurio ad tibiaa

posticas.

grajus y. magnitudine lupi, trunco curvato, rostro at-
tenuate, &c. &c.

Linnaeus' definition of what he considers to be
mere varieties of the species Man are, it will be
observed, as completely free from any illusion to
linguistic peculiarities as those brief and pregnant
sentences in which he sketches the characters of
the varieties of the species Dog. "Pilis nigris,
naribus patulis " may be set against " auriculis
erectis, cauda subtus lanata ; " while the remarks
on the morals and manners of the human sub-
ject seem as if they were thrown in merely by
way of makeweight.

Buffon, Blumenbach (the founder of ethnology
as a special science), Rudolphi, Bory de St.
Vincent, Desmoulins, Cuvier, Retzius, indeed I
may say all the naturalists proper, have dealt with
man from a no less completely zoological point of
view ; while, as might have been expected, those
who have been least naturalists, and most lin-
guists, have most neglected the zoological method,
the neglect culminating in those who have
been altogether devoid of acquaintance with
anatomy.

Prichard's proposition, that language is more
persistent than physical characters, is one which

£•22 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

has never been proved, and indeed admits of no
proof, seeing that the records of language do not
extend so far as those of physical characters.
But, until the superior tenacity of linguistic over
physical peculiarities is shown, and until the
abundant evidence which exists, that the language
of a people may change without corresponding
physical change in that people, is shown to be
valueless, it is plain that the zoological court of
appeal is the highest for the ethnologist, and that
no evidence can be set against that derived from
physical characters.

What, then, will a new survey of mankind from
the Linnean point of view teach us ?

The great antipodal block of land we call
Australia has, speaking roughly, the form of a
vast quadrangle, 2,000 miles on the side, and
extends from the hottest tropical, to the middle of
the temperate, zone. Setting aside the foreign
colonists introduced within the last century, it is
inhabited by people no less remarkable for the
uniformity, than for the singularity, of their
physical characters-Cand social state;' For the most
part of fair stature, erect and well built, except for
an unusual slenderness of the lower limbs, the
AUSTRALIANS have dark, usually chocolate-
coloured skins ; fine dark wavy hair ; dark eyes,
overhung by beetle brows ; coarse, projecting jaws ;
broad and dilated, but not especially flattened,

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 223

noses, and lips which, though prominent, are
eminently flexible.

The skulls of these people are always long and
narrow, with a smaller development of the frontal
sinuses than usually corresponds with such largely
developed brow ridges. An Australian skull of a
round form, or one the transverse diameter of
which exceeds eight-tenths of its length, has
never been seen. These people, in a word, are
eminently (< dolichocephalic," or long-headed ; but,
with this one limitation, their crania present con-
siderable variations, some being comparatively
high and arched, while others are more remarkably
depressed than almost any other human skulls.
The female pelvis differs comparatively little from
the European ; but in the pelves of male Austra-
lians which I have examined, the antero-posterior
and transverse diameters approach equality more
nearly than is the case in Europeans.

No Australian tribe has ever been known to
cultivate the ground,1 to use metals, pottery, or
any kind of textile fabric. They rarely construct
huts. Their means of navigation are limited to
rafts or canoes, made of sheets of bark. Clothing,
except skin cloaks for protection from cold, is a
superfluity with which they dispense ; and though
they have some singular weapons, almost peculiar

[! At Cape York we found that the natives had learned from
their Papuan neighbours to grow a little coarse tobacco ; and,
elsewhere, yams are said to be grown, but hardly cultivated.
Plaiting, basket-making, and netting are practised.— 1894.]

224 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

to themselves, they are wholly unacquainted with
bows and arrows.

It is but a step, as it were, across Bass's Straits
to Tasmania. Neither climate nor the charac-
teristic forms of vegetable or animal life change
largely on the south side of the Straits, but the
early voyagers found Man singularly different from
him on the north side. The skin of the Tasmanian
was dark, though he lived between parallels of
latitude corresponding with those of middle
Europe in our own hemisphere ; his jaws projected,
his head was long and narrow ; his civilization was
<*. about on a footing with that of the Australian, if
not lower, for I cannot discover that the Tasmanian
understood the use of the throwing-stick. But he
differed from the Australian in nis woolly, negro-
like hair ; whence the name of NEGRITO, which has
been applied to him and his congeners.

Such Negritos — differing more or less from the
Tasmanian but agreeing with him in dark skin
and woolly hair — occupy New Caledonia, the New
Hebrides, the Louisiade Archipelago ; and stretch-
ing to the Papuan Islands, and for a doubtful
extent beyond them to the north and west, form a
sort of belt, or zone, of Negrito population, inter-
posed between the Australians on the west and the
inhabitants of the great majority of the Pacific
islands on the east.

The cranial characters of the Negritos vary
considerably more than those of their skin and hair,

rv METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 225

the most notable circumstance being the strong
Australian aspect which distinguishes many
Negrito skulls, while others tend rather towards
forms common in the Polynesian islands.

In civilization, New Caledonia exhibits an
advance upon Tasmania, and, farther north, there
is a still greater improvement. But the bows and
arrows, the perched houses, the outrigger canoes,
the habits of betel-chewing and of kawa-drinking,
which abound more or less among the northern
Negritos, are probably to be regarded not as the
products of an indigenous civilization, but merely
as indications of the extent to which foreign
influences have modified the primitive social state
of these people.

From Tasmania or New Caledonia, to New
Zealand or Tongataboo, is again but a brief
voyage : but it brings about a still more notable
change in the aspect of the indigenous population
than that effected by the passage of Bass's Straits.
Instead of being chocolate-coloured people, the
Maories and Tongans are light brown ; instead of
woolly, they have straight, or wavy, black hair.
And if from New Zealand, we travel some 5,000
miles east to Easter Island ; and from Easter Island,
for as great a distance north-west, to the Sandwich
Islands; and thence' 7,000 miles, westward and
southward, to Sumatra; and even across the
Indian Ocean, into the interior of Madagascar, we
shall everywhere meet with people whose hair is
179

226 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY TV

straight or wavy, and whose skins exhibit various
shades of brown. These are the Polynesians,
Micronesians, Indonesians, whom Latham has
grouped together under the common title of
AMPHINESIANS.

The cranial characters of these people, as of the
Negritos, are less constant than those of their skin
and hair. The Maori has a long skull ; the Sand-
wich Islander a broad skull. Some, like these,
have strong brow ridges ; others like the Dayaks
and many Polynesians, have hardly any nasal
indentation. It is only in the westernmost parts
of their area that the Amphinesian nations know
anything about bows and arrows as weapons, or are
acquainted with the use of metals or with pottery.
Everywhere they cultivate the ground, construct
houses, and skilfully build and manage outrigger,
or double, canoes ; while, almost everywhere, they
use some kind of fabric for clothing.

Between Easter Island, or the Sandwich Islands,
and any part of the American coast is a much
wider interval than that between Tasmania and
New Zealand, but the ethnological interval be-
tween the American and the Polynesian is less
than that between either of the previously named
stocks.

The t}^pical AMERICAN has straight black hair
and dark eyes, his skin exhibiting various shades
of reddish or yellowish brown, sometimes inclining
to olive. The face is broad and scantily bearded ,*

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 227

the skull wide and high. Such people extend
from Patagonia to Mexico, and much farther north
along the west coast. In the main a race of
hunters, they had nevertheless, at the time of the
discovery of the Americas, attained a remarkable
degree of civilization in some localities. They had
domesticated ruminants, and not only practised
agriculture, but had learned the value of irriga-
tion. They manufactured textile fabrics, were
masters of the potter's art, and knew how to erect
massive buildings of stone. They understood
the working of the precious, though not of the use-
ful, metals ; l and had even attained to a rude kind
of hieroglyphic, or picture, writing. The Ameri-
cans not only employ the bow and arrow, but, like
some Amphinesians, the blow-pipe, as offensive
weapons : but I am not aware that the outrigger
canoe has ever been observed among them.

I have reason to suspect that some of the
Fuegian tribes differ cranially from the typical
Americans;2 and the Northern and Eastern
American tribes have longer skulls than their
Southern compatriots. But the ESQUIMAUX, who
roam on the desolate and ice-bound coast of Arctic
America, certainly present us with a new stock.
The Esquimaux (among whom the Greenlanders are
included), in fact, though they share the straight

P With the exception of copper and hronze. — 1894.]

[3 A suspicion subsequently verified. See a memoir on

American Skulls, Journal of Anatomy and Physio! ogr. Vol. 16,

—189 U

228 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 17

black hair of the proper Americans, are generally
a duller complexioned, shorter, and a more squat
people, and they have still more prominent cheek-
bones. But the circumstance which most com-
pletely separates them from the typical Americans,
is the form of their skulls, which instead of being
broad, high, and truncated behind, are eminently
long, usually low, and prolonged backwards.
These Hyperborean people clothe themselves in
skins, know nothing of pottery, and hardly any-
thing of metals. Dependent for existence upon
the produce of the chase, the seal and the whale
are to them what the cocoa-nut tree and the
plantain are to the savages of more genial
climates. Not only are those animals meat and
raiment, but they are canoes, sledges, weapons,
tools, windows, and fire ; while they support the
dog, who is the indispensable ally and beast of
burden of the Esquimaux.

It is admitted that the Tchuktchi, on the
eastern side of Behring's Straits, are, in all essential
respects, Esquimaux ; and I do not know that
there is any satisfactory evidence to show that the
Tunguses and Samoiedes do not essentially share
the same physical characters. Southward, there
are indications of Esquimaux characters among
the Japanese, and it is possible that their influence
may be traced yet further.

However this may be, Eastern Asia, from Mant-
chouria to Siam, Thibet, and Northern Hindostan,

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 229

is continuously inhabited by men, usually of
short stature, with skins varying in colour from
yellow to olive ; with broad cheek-bones and faces
that, owing to the insignificance of the nose, are
exceedingly flat ; and with small, obliquely-set l
black eyes and straight black hair, which some-
times attains a very great length upon the scalp,
but is always scanty upon the face and body.
The skull, never much elongated, is, generally,
remarkably broad and rounded, with hardly any
nasal depression, and but slight, if any, projection
of the jaws. Many of these people, for whom the
old name of MONGOLIANS may be retained, are
nomades ; others, as the Chinese, have attained a
remarkable and apparently indigenous civilization,
only surpassed by that of Europe.

At the north-western extremity of Europe the
Lapps repeat the characters of the Eastern
Asiatics. Between these extreme points, the
Mongolian stock is not continuous, but is repre-
sented by a chain of more or less isolated tribes,
who pass under the name of Calmucks and Tar-
tars, and form Mongolian islands, as it were, in the
midst of an ocean of other people.

The waves of this ocean are the nations for
whom, in order to avoid the endless confusion pro-
duced by our present half-physical, half-philo-

p The obliquity, it must be recollected, is not in the position
of the eyeball but arises from the arrangement of the skin in
the neighbourhood of the eyelids. — 1894 ]

230 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY IT

logical classification, I shall use a new name —
XANTHOCHROI — indicating that they are yellow "
haired and " pale " in complexion. The Chinese
historians of the Han dynasty, writing in the third
century before our era, describe, with much
minuteness, certain numerous and powerful
barbarians with "yellow hair, green eyes, and
prominent noses," who, the black-haired, skew-
eyed, and flat-nosed annalists remark in passing,
are "just like the apes from whom they are
descended/' These people held, in force, the
upper waters of the Yenisei, and thence under
various names stretched southward to Thibet and
Kashgar. Fair-haired and blue-eyed northern ene-
mies were no less known to the ancient Hindoos,
to the Persians, and to the Egyptians, on the south
and west of the great central Asiatic area ; while
the testimony of all European antiquity is to the
effect that, before and since the period in question,
there lay beyond the Danube, the Rhine, and the
Seine, a vast and dangerous yellow or red haired,
fair-skinned, blue-eyed population. Whether the
disturbers of the marches of the Roman Empire
were called Gauls or Germans, Goths, Alans, or
Scythians, one thing seems certain, that until the
invasion of the Huns, they were largely tall, fair,
blue-eyed men.

If any one should think fit to assume that, in
the year 100 B.C., there was one continuous
Xanthochroic population from the Rhine to the

IT METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 231

Yenisei, and from the Ural mountains to the
Hindoo Koosh, I know not that any evidence
' exists by which that position could be upset, while
the existing state of things is rather in its
favour than otherwise. For the Scandinavians,
the Germans, the Slavonian and the Finnish
tribes, to a great extent ; some of the inhabitants
of Greece, many Turks, some Kirghis, and
some Mantchous, the Ossetes in the Caucasus, the
Siahposh, the Rohillas, are at the present day fair,
yellow or red haired, and blue-eyed ; and the
interpolation of tribes of Mongolian hair and com-
plexion, as far west as the Caspian Steppes and
the Crimea, might justly be accounted for by those
subsequent westward irruptions of the Mongolian
stock, of which history furnishes abundant testi-
mony. The furthermost limit of the Xanthochroi
north-westward is Iceland and the British Isles ;
south-westward, they are traceable at intervals
through Syria and the Berber country, ending in
the Canary Islands. The cranial characters of the
Xanthochroi are not, at present, strictly definable.
The Scandinavians are certainly long-headed;
but many Germans, the Swiss so far as they are
Germanized, the Slavonians, the Fins, and the
Turks, are short-headed. What were the cranial
characters of the ancient " U-suns " and " Ting-
lings " of the valley of the Yenisei is unknown.

West and south of the area occupied by the
chief mass of the Xanthochroi, and north of the

232 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

Sahara, is a broad belt of land, shaped like a >-.
Between the forks of the Y lies the Mediterranean ;
the stem of it is Arabia. The stem is bathed by
the Indian Ocean, the western ends of the forks
by the Atlantic. The majority of the people in-
habiting the area thus roughly denned have, like
the Xanthochroi, prominent noses, pale skins and
wavy hair, with abundant beards ; but, unlike them,
the hair is black or dark and the eyes usually so.
They may thence be called the MELANOCHROI.
Such people are found in the British Islands, in
Western and Southern Gau], in Spain, in Italy
south of the Po, in parts of Greece, in Syria and
Arabia, stretching as far northward and eastward
as the Caucasus and Persia. They are the chief
inhabitants of Africa north of the Sahara, and, like
the Xanthochroi, they end in the Canary Islands.
They are known as Kelts, Iberians, Etruscans,
Romans, Pelasgians, Berbers, Semites. The
majority of them are long-headed, and of smaller
stature than the Xanthochroi.1 It is needless
to remark upon the civilization of these two
great stocks. With them has originated every-
. thing that is highest in science, in art, in law,
in politics, a-nd in mechanical inventions. In their
hands, at the present moment, lies the order of the
social world, and to them its progress is committed.
South of the Atlas, and of the Great Desert,

P See the Essay on the Aryan Question, in this volume, for
some qualifications of these statements necessitated by furthei
knowledge. 1894.]

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 233

Middle Africa exhibits a new type of humanity in
the NEGRO, with his dark skin, woolly hair, pro-
jecting jaws, and thick lips. As a rule, the skull
of the Negro is remarkably long ; it rarely
approaches the broad type, and never exhibits the
roundness of the Mongolian. A cultivator of the
ground, and dwelling in villages; a maker of
pottery, and a worker in the useful as well as the
ornamental metals ; employing the bow and
arrow as well as the spear, the typical negro stands
high in point of civilization above the Australian.

Resembling the Negroes in cranial characters,
the BUSHMEN of South Africa differ from them in
their yellowish brown skins, their tufted hair, their
remarkably small stature, and their tendency to
fatty and other integumentary outgrowths ; nor is
the wonderful click with which their speech is in-
terspersed to be overlooked in enumerating the
physical characteristics of this strange people.

The so-called " Dravidian " populations of
Southern Hindostan lead us back, physically as
well as geographically, towards the Australians ; l

[' Of the affinities of these stocks I think there can be no
doubt. I was formerly inclined to believe that the ancient
Egyptian was the highest term in an ascending series : Australian
—Dravidian — Egyptian of allied stocks. And I believe still that
there is a good deal to be said for that hypothesis. One of the
most interesting problems at present is the relation of the prse-
semitic population of Babylonia to the Dravidians, on the one
hand, and the Old Fgyptian on the other. Only one point
appears to me to be quite clear, if the statues of Tell Lon re-
present these people ; that there is not a trace of Mongolian
affinity about them.— 1894. J

234 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

while the diminutive MINCOPIES of the Andaman
Islands lie midway between the Negro and
Negrito races, and, as Mr. Busk has pointed out, oc-
casionally present the rare combination of brachy-
cephaly, or short-headedness, with woolly hair.

In the preceding progress along the outskirts of
the habitable world, eleven readily distinguishable
stocks, or persistent modifications, of mankind,
have been recognized. I have purposely omitted
such people as the Abyssinians and the Hindoos
of the valleys of the Ganges and Indus, who
there is every reason to believe result from the
intermixture of distinct stocks. Perhaps I ought
for like reasons, to have ignored the Mincopies.
But I do not pretend that my enumeration is
complete or, in any sense, perfect. It is enough
for my purpose if it be admitted (and I think it
cannot be denied) that those which I have men-
tioned exist, are well marked, and occupy the
greater part of the habitable globe.

In attempting to classify these persistent modi-
fications after the manner of naturalists, the first
circumstance that attracts one's attention is the
broad contrast between the people with straight
and wavy hair, and those with crisp, woolly, or
tufted hair. Bory de St. Vincent, noting this
fundamental distinction, divided mankind accord-
ingly into the two primary groups of Leiotricki
and Ulotrichi> — terms which are open to criticism,

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 235

but which I adopt in the accompanying table,
because they have been used. It is better for
science to accept a faulty name which has the
merit of existence, than to burthen it with a
faultless newly invented one.

Under each of these divisions are two columns,
one for the Brachycephali, or short heads, and
one for the Dolichocephali,1 or long heads. Again,
each column is subdivided transversely into four
compartments, one for the " leucous," people with
fair complexions and yellow or red hair ; one for
the " leucomelanous," with dark hair and pale
skins ; one for the " xanthomelanous," with black
hair and yellow, brown, or olive skins; and one
for the "melanous," with black hair and dark
brown or blackish skins.

LEIOTHICHI. ULOTRICHI.

Dolichocephali. Brachycephali. Dolichocephali. Brachycephali.
Leucous.

.... Xanthochroi ....
Leucomelanous.

.... Melanochroi ....
Xanthomelanous.

Esquimaux. Mongolians. Bushmen.
A mphinesians.

Americans.
Melanous.

Australians. Negroes. Mincopies (?)

Negritos.

%* The names of the stocks "known only since the fifteenth cen-
tury are put into italics. Jf the " Skr tilings" of the Norse
discoverers of America were Esquimaux, Europeans became
acquainted with the latter six or seven centuries earlier.

1 Skulls, the transverse diameter of which is more than eight-

236 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

It is curious to observe that almost all the
woolly-haired people are also long-headed ; while
among the straight-haired nations broad heads
preponderate, and only two stocks, the Esquimaux
and the Australians, are exclusively long-headed.
One of the acutest and most original of ethno-
logists, Desmoulins, originated the idea, which has
subsequently been fully developed by Agassiz,
that the distribution of the persistent modifica-
tions of man is governed by the same laws as that

^ of other animals, and that both fall into the same
great distributional provinces. Thus, Australia ;
America, south of Mexico ; the Arctic regions ;
Europe, Syria, Arabia, and North Africa, taken
together, are each regions eminently characterised
by the nature of their animal and vegetable popu-

' lations, and each, as we have seen, has its peculiar
and characteristic form of man. But it may be
doubted whether the parallel thus drawn will
hold good strictly, and in all cases. The
Tasmanian Fauna and Flora are essentially Aus-
tralian, and the like is true, to a less extent, of
many, if not of all, the Papuan islands ; but the
Negritos who inhabit these islands are strikingly
different from the Australians. Again, the differ-
ences between the Mongolians and the Xantho-
chroi are out of all proportion greater than those

tenths the long diameter, are short ; those which have the
transverse diameter less than eight- tenths the longitudinal, are
long.

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 237

between the Faunae and Floras of Central and
Eastern Asia. But whatever the difficulties in
the way of the detailed application of this com-
parison of the distribution of men with that of
animals, it is well worthy of being borne in mind,
and carried as far as it will go.

Apart from all speculation, a very curious fact
regarding the distribution of the persistent modi-
fications of mankind becomes apparent on inspect-
ing an Ethnological chart, projected in such a
manner that the Pacific Ocean occupies its centre.
Such a chart exhibits an Australian area occupied
by dark smooth-haired people, separated by an
incomplete inner zone of dark woolly -haired
Negritos and Negroes, from an outer zone of
comparatively pale and smooth-haired men,
occupying the Americas, and nearly all Asia l and
North Africa.2

Such is a brief sketch of the characters and
distribution of the persistent modifications, or
stocks, of mankind at the present day. If we seek
for direct evidence of how long this state of things
has lasted, we shall find little enough, and that
little far from satisfactory. Of the eleven different
stocks enumerated, seven have been known to us
for less than 400 years ; and of these seven not
one possessed a fragment of written history at the

P Hindostan excepted. — 1894.]
[- Egypt excep ted. —1894.]

238 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

time it came into contact with European civilization.
The other four — the Negroes, Mongolians.
Xanthochroi, and Melanochroi — have always
existed in some of the localities in which they are
now found, nor do the negroes ever seem to have
voluntarily travelled beyond the limits of their
present area. But aDcient history is in a great
measure the record of the mutual encroachments
of the other three stocks.

On the whole, however, it is wonderful how
little change has been effected by these mutual
invasions and intermixtures. As at the present
time, so at the dawn of history, the Melanochroi
fringed the Atlantic and the Mediterranean ; the
Xanthochroi occupied most of Central and
Eastern Europe, and much of Western and
Central Asia ; while Mongolians held the extreme
east of the Old World. So far as history teaches
us, the populations of Europe, Asia and Africa
were, twenty1 centuries ago, just what they
are now, in their broad features and general dis-
tribution.

The evidence yielded by Archaeology is not
very definite, but so far as it goes, it is to much
the same effect. The mound builders of Central
America seem to have had the characteristic short
and broad head of the modern inhabitants of that
continent. The tumuli and tombs of Ancient
Scandinavia, of pre-Eoman Britain, of Gaul, of

I1 We may now safely say thirty or forty. — 1894.]

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 230

Switzerland, reveal two types of skull — -a broad
and a long — of which, in Scandinavia, the broad
seems to have belonged to the older stock, while
the reverse was probably the case in Britain, and
certainly in Switzerland. It has been assumed
that the broad-skulled people of ancient Scandi-
navia were Lapps ; but there is no proof of the
fact, and they may have been, like the broad-
skulled Swiss and Germans, Xanthochroi. One of
the greatest of ethnological difficulties is to know
where the modern Swedes, Norsemen, and Saxons
got their long heads, as all their neighbours, Fins,
Lapps, Slavonians, and South Germans, are broad-
headed. Again, who were the small-handed *
long-headed people of the " bronze epoch," and
what has become of the infusion of their blood
among the Xanthochroi ?

At present Palaeontology yields no safe data to
the ethnologist. We know absolutely nothing of
the ethnological characters of the men of Abbe-
ville and Hoxne ; but must be content with the
demonstration, in itself of immense value, that
Man existed in Western Europe when its physical
condition was widely different from what it is now,
and when animals existed, which, though they
belong to what is, properly speaking, the present

P Supposed to be small-handed from the small handles of
their bronze swords. But I observe in the Assyrian sculptures
the same small handles, while the hands are by no means small.
How did the Assyrians use their swords ? So far as I knov;
thrusting alone i/represented. — 1894.]

2*0 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY IV

order of things, have long been extinct. Beyond
the limits of a fraction of Europe, Paleontology
tells us nothing of man or of his works.

To sum up our knowledge of the ethnological
past of man ; so far as the light is bright, it shows
him substantially as he is now ; and, when it grows
dim, it permits us to see no sign that he was other
than he is now.

It is a general belief that men of different
stocks differ as much physiologically as they do
morphologically ; but it is very hard to prove, in
any particular case, how much of a supposed
national characteristic is due to inherent physio-
logical peculiarities, and how much to the influence
of circumstances. There is much evidence to
show, however, that some stocks enjoy a partial or
complete immunity from diseases which destroy,
or decimate, others. Thus there seems good
ground for the belief that Negroes are remarkably
exempt from yellow fever; and that, among
Europeans, the melanochroic people are less
obnoxious to its ravages than the xanthochroic.
But many writers, not content with physiological
differences of this kind, undertake to prove the
existence of others of far greater moment ; and,
indeed, to show that certain stocks of mankind
exhibit, more or less distinctly, the physiological
characters of true species. Unions between these
stocks, and still more between the half-breeds
arising from their mixture, arc affirmed to be

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 241

either infertile, or less fertile than those which
take place between males and females of either
stock under the same circumstances. Some go
so far as to assert that no mixed breeds of man-
kind can maintain themselves without the assist-
tance of one or other of the parent stocks, and
that, consequently, they must inevitably be ob-
literated in the long run.

Here, again, it is exceedingly difficult to obtain
trustworthy evidence and to free the effects of
the pure physiological experiment from adven-
titious influences. The only trial which, by a
strange chance, was kept clear of all such influences
— the only instance in which two distinct stocks of
mankind were crossed, and their progeny inter-
married without any admixture from without — •
is the famous case of the Pitcairn Islanders, who
were the progeny of Bligh's English sailors by
Tahitian women. The results of this experiment,
as everybody knows, are dead against those who
maintain the doctrine of human hybridity, seeing
that the Pitcairn Islanders, even though they
necessarily contracted consanguineous marriages,
throve and multiplied exceedingly.

But those who are disposed to believe in this
doctrine should study the evidence brought forward
in its support by M. Broca, its latest and ablest
advocate, and compare this evidence with that
which the botanists, as represented by a Gaertner,
or by a Darwin, think it indispensable to obtain

180

242 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

before they will admit the infertility of crosses
between two allied kinds of plants. They will
then, I think, be satisfied that the doctrine in
question rests upon a very unsafe foundation ; that
the facts adduced in its support are capable of
many other interpretations ; and, indeed, that from
the very nature of the case, demonstrative evidence
one way or the other is almost unattainable.
A priori, I should be disposed to expect a certain
amount of infertility between some of the extreme
modifications of mankind ; and still more between
the offsprings of their intermixture. A posteriori,
I cannot discover any satisfactory proof that such
infertility exists.

From the facts of ethnology I now turn to
the theories and speculations of ethnologists,
which have been devised to explain these facts,
' and to furnish satisfactory answers to the inquiry
— what conditions have determined the existence
of the persistent modifications of mankind,
and have caused their distribution to be what
it is ? '

These speculations may be grouped under
three heads : firstly the Monogenist hypotheses ;
secondly, those of the Polygenists; and thirdly,
that which would result from a simple application
of Darwinian principles to mankind.

According to the Monogenists, all mankind have
sprung from a single pair, whose multitudinous
progeny spread themselves over the world, such as

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 243

it now is, and became modified into the forms we
meet with in the various regions of the earth, by
the effect of the .climatal and other conditions to
which they were subjected.

The advocates of this hypothesis are divisible
into several schools. There are those who repre-
sent the most numerous, respectable, and would-
be orthodox of the public, and are what may be
called " Adamites," pure and simple. They
believe that Adam was made out of earth some-
where in Asia, about six thousand years ago ; that
Eve was was modelled from one of his ribs ; and
that the progeny of these two having been re-
duced to the eight persons who were landed on
the summit of Mount Ararat after an universal
deluge, all the nations of the earth have proceeded
from these last, have migrated to their present
localities, and have become converted into Negroes,
Australians, Mongolians, &c., within that time.
Five-sixths of the public are taught this Adamitic
Monogenism, as if it were an established truth,
and believe it. I do not ; and I am not acquainted
with any man of science, or duly instructed person,
who does.

A second school of monogenists, not worthy of
much attention, attempts to hold a place midway
between the Adamites and a third division, who
take up a purely scientific position, and require to
be dealt with accordingly. This third division, in
fact, numbers in its ranks Linnaeus, Buffon,

244 METHODS AND EESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

Blumenbach, Cuvier, Prichard, and many distin-
guished living ethnologists.

These " Rational Monogenists," or, at any rate,
the more modern among them, hold, firstly, that
the present condition of the earth has existed for
untold ages ; secondly, that, at a remote period,
beyond the ken of Archbishop Usher, man was
created, somewhere between the Caucasus and
the Hindoo Koosh; thirdly, that he might have
migrated thence to all parts of the inhabited
world, seeing that none of them are unattainable
from some other inhabited part, by men provided
with only such means of transport as savages are
known to possess and must have invented ;
fourthly, that the operation of the existing diver-
sities of climate and other conditions upon people
so migrating, is sufficient to account for all the
diversities of mankind.

Of the truth of the first of these propositions no
competent judge now entertains any doubt. The
second is more open to discussion ; for, in these
latter days, many question the special creation of
man : and even if his special creation be granted,
there is not a shadow of a reason why he should
have been created in Asia rather than anywhere
else. Of all the odd myths that have arisen in
the scientific world, the " Caucasian mystery/'
invented quite innocently by Blumenbach, is the
oddest. A Georgian woman's skull was the
handsomest in his collection. Hence it became

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 245

his model exemplar of human skulls, from which
all others might be regarded as deviations ; and
out of this, by some strange intellectual hocus-
pocus, grew up the notion that the Caucasian
man is the prototypic "Adamic" man, and his
country the primitive centre of our kind. Per-
haps the most curious thing of all is, that the
said Georgian skull, after all, is not a skull of
average form, but distinctly belongs to the
brachycephalic group.

With the third proposition I am quite disposed
to agree, though it must be recollected that it is
one thing to allow that a given migration is
possible, and another to admit there is good
reason to believe it has really taken place.

But I can find no sufficient ground for accepting
the fourth proposition ; and I doubt if it would
ever have obtained its general currency except for
the circumstance that fair Europeans are very
readily tanned and embrowned by the sun. Yet
I am not aware that there is a particle of proof
that the cutaneous change thus effected can be-
come hereditary, any more than that the enlarged
livers, which plague our countrymen in India, can
be transmitted ; while there is very strong
evidence to the contrary. Not only, in fact, are
there such cases as those of the English families
in Barbadoes, who have remained for six genera-
tions unaltered in complexion, but which are open
to the objection that they may have received

246 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

infusions of fresh European blood ; but there is
the broad fact, that not a single indigenous Negro
exists either in the great alluvial plains of tropical
South America, or in the exposed islands of the
Polynesian Archipelago, or among the populations
of equatorial Borneo or Sumatra. No satisfactory
explanation of these obvious difficulties has been
offered by the advocates of the direct influence of
conditions. And as for the more important modifi-
cations observed in the structure of the brain, and
in the form of the skull, no one has ever pre-
tended to show in what way they can be effected
directly by climate.

It is here, in fact, that the strength of the
Polygenists, or those who maintain that men
primitively arose, not from one, but from many
stocks, lies. Show us, they say to the Mono-
gen ists, a single case in which the characters of
a human stock have been essentially modified
without its being demonstrable, or, at least, highly
probable, that there has been intermixture of
blood with some foreign stock. Bring forward
any instance in which a part of the world, formerly
inhabited by one stock, is now the dwelling-place
of another, and we will prove the change to be
the result of migration, or of intermixture, and
not of modification of character by climatic
influences. Finally, prove to us that the evidence
in favour of the specific distinctness of many
animals, admitted to be distinct species by all

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 247

zoologists, is a whit better than that upon which
we maintain the specific distinctness of men.

If presenting unanswerable objections to your
adversary were the same thing as proving your
own case, the Poly gen ists would be in a fair way
towards victory; but, unfortunately, as I have
already observed, they have as yet completely
failed to adduce satisfactory positive proof of the
specific diversity of mankind. Like the Mono-
genists, the Polygenists are of several sects ; some
imagine that their assumed species of mankind
were created where we find them — the African in
Africa, and the Australian in Australia, along
with the other animals of their distributional
province ; others conceive that each species of
man has resulted from the modification of some
antecedent species of ape — the American from
the broad-nosed Simians of the New World, the
African from the Troglodytic stock, the Mongolian
from the Orangs.

The first hypothesis is hardly likely to win
much favour. The whole tendency of modern
science is to thrust the origination of things
further and further into the background ; and
the chief philosophical objection to Adam being,
not his oneness, but the hypothesis of his special
creation ; the multiplication of that objection
tenfold is, whatever it may look, an increase,
instead of a diminution, of the difficulties of the
case. And, as to the second alternative, it may

248 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

safely be affirmed that, even if the differences
between men are specific, they are so small, that
the assumption of more than one primitive stock
for all is altogether superfluous. Surely no
one can now be found to assert that any two
stocks of mankind differ as much as a chim-
panzee and an orang do ; still less that they are
as unlike as either of these is to any New World
Simian !

Lastly, the granting of the Polygenist premises
does not, in the slightest degree, necessitate the
Polygenist conclusion. Admit that Negroes and
Australians, Negritos and Mongols are distinct
species, or distinct genera, if you will, and you
may yet, with perfect consistency, be the strictest
of Monogenists, and even believe in Adam and
Eve as the primaeval parents of all mankind.

It is to Mr. Darwin we owe this discovery: it is
he who, coming forward in the guise of an eclectic
philosopher, presents -his doctrine as the key to
ethnology, and as reconciling and combining all
that is good in the Monogenistic and Polygenistic
schools. It is true that Mr. Darwin has not, in
so many words, applied his views to ethnology ;
but even he who " runs and reads " the " Origin
of Species " can hardly fail to do so ; and, further-
.rnore, Mr. Wallace and M. Pouchet have recently
treated of ethnological questions from this point
of view. Let me, in conclusion, add my own con-
tribution to the same store.

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 249

I assume Man to have arisen in the manner
which I have discussed elsewhere, and probably,
though by no means necessarily, in one locality.
Whether he arose singly, or a number of examples
appeared contemporaneously, is also an open
question for the believer in the production of
species by the gradual modification of pre-existing
ones. At what epoch of the world's history this
took place, again, we have no evidence whatever.
It may have been in the older tertiary, or earlier ;
but what is most important to remember is, that
the discoveries of late years have proved that man
inhabited Western Europe, at any rate, before the
occurrence of those great physical changes which
have given Europe its present aspect. And as
the same evidence shows that man was the con-
temporary of animals which are now extinct, it
is not too much to assume that his existence
dates back at least as far as that of our present
Fauna and Flora, or before the epoch of the
drift.

But if this be true, it is somewhat startling to
reflect upon the prodigious changes which have
taken place in the physical geography of this
planet since man has been an occupant of it.

During that period the greater part of the
British islands, of Central Europe, of Northern
Asia, have been submerged beneath the sea and
raised up again. So has the great desert of
Sahara, which occupies the major part of Northern

250 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

Africa.1 The Caspian and the Aral seas have
been one, and their united waters have probably
communicated with both the Arctic and the
Mediterranean oceans.2 The greater part of
North America has been under water, and has
emerged. It is highly probable that a large part
of the Malayan Archipelago has sunk, and that its
primitive continuity with Asia has been destroyed.
Over the great Polynesian area subsidence has
taken place to the extent of many thousands of
feet — subsidence of so vast a character, in fact,
that if a continent like Asia had once occupied
the area of the Pacific, the peaks of its mountains
would now show not more numerous than the
islands of the Polynesian Archipelago.3

What lands may have been thickly populated
for untold ages, and subsequently have disappeared
and left no sign above the waters, it is of course
impossible for us to say ; but unless we are to make
the wholly unjustifiable assumption that no dry
land rose elsewhere when our present dry land
sank, there must be half-a-dozen Atlantises
beneath the waves of the various oceans of the
world. But if the regions which have undergone

p Later investigations tend to show that only a small pail of
the Sahara has been submerged. — 1894.]

[2 With reference to certain reclamations that have been
made Apropos of a speculation set forth in the essay on tho
Aryan Question (infra], I draw attention to the fact that this
passage was written twenty-nine years ago. — 1894.]

[3 The occurrence of this extensive subsidence is disputed. —
1894.]

IV METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY 251

these slow and gradual, but immense alterations,
were wholly or in part inhabited before the
changes I have indicated began — and it is more
probable that they were than that they were not — •
what a wonderfully efficient " Emigration Board "
must have been at work all over the world long
before canoes, or even rafts, were invented ; and
before men were impelled to wander by any desire
nobler or stronger than hunger. And as these
rude and primitive families were thrnst, in the
course of long series of generations, from land
to land, impelled by encroachments of sea or of
marsh, or by severity of summer heat or winter
cold, to change their positions, what opportunities
must have been offered for the play of natural
selection, in preserving one family variation and
destroying another !

Suppose, for example, that some families of a
horde which had reached a land charged with the
seeds of yellow fever, varied in the direction of
woolliness of hair and darkness of skin. Then, if
it be true that these physical characters are
accompanied by "comparative or absolute exemp-
tions from that scourge, the inevitable tendency
would be to the preservation and multiplication of
the darker and woollier families, and the elimi-
nation of the whiter and smoother haired. In
fact, by the operation of causes precisely similar to
those which, in the famous instance cited by Mr.
Darwin, have given rise to a race of black pigs in

252 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv

the forests of Louisiana, a negro stock would even-
tually people the region.1 Again, how often, by
such physical changes, must a stock have been iso-
lated from all others for innumerable generations,
and have found ample time for the hereditary
hardening of its special peculiarities into the
enduring characters of a persistent modification.
Nor, if it be true that the physiological differ-
ences of species may be produced by variation and
natural selection, as Mr. Darwin supposes, would it
be at all astonishing, if, in some of these separated
stocks, the process of differentiation should have
gone so far as to give rise to the phenomena of
hybridity. In the face of the overwhelming
evidence in favour of the unity of the origin of
mankind afforded by anatomical considerations,
satisfactory proof of the existence of any degree of
sterility in the unions of members of two of the
" persistent modifications " of mankind, might well
be appealed to by Mr. Darwin as crucial evidence
of the truth of his views regarding the origin of
species in general.

P Mr. Pearson, in his very interesting work On National
Life and Character, justly dwells upon the obstacles to the
existence of the white races within the Tropics. There is, how-
ever, this point to be considered, that the fevers to which the
white men succumb are probably caused by microbes ; and that
modern therapeutic science is daily teaching us more and more
about the ways of obtaining immunity from or alleviating these
attacks. What would become of black competition if fever
" vaccination" proved effectual ? — 1894.]

ON SOME FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH
ETHNOLOGY

[1871]

IN view of the many discussions to which the
complicated problems offered by the ethnology of
the British Islands have given rise, it may be
useful to attempt to pick out, from amidst the
confused masses of assertion and of inference,
those propositions which appear to rest upon a
secure foundation, and to state the evidence by
which they are supported. Such is the purpose
of the present paper.

Some of these well-based propositions relate to
the physical characters of the people of Britain
and their neighbours; while others concern the
languages which they spoke. I shall deal, in the
first place, with the physical questions.

I. Eighteen hundred years ago the population of
Britain comprised people of two types of complexion

254 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY v

— the one fair, and the other dark. The dark
people resembled the Aquitani and the Iberians;
the fair people were like the Belgie Gauls.

The chief direct evidence of the truth of this
proposition is the well-known passage of Tacitus : —

"Ceteram Britanniam qui mortales initio coluerint, indigenes
an advecti, ut inter barbaros, parum compertum. Habitus corp-
orum varii : atque ex eo argumenta : namque rutilse Caledoniam
habitantium comse, magni artus, Germanicam originem assever-
ant. Silurum colorati vultus et torti plerumque crines, et
posita contra Hispania, Iberos veteres trajecisse, easque sedes
occupasse, fidem faciunt. Proximi Gallis et similes sunt ; seu
durante originis vi, seu procurrentibus in diversa terris, positio
coal! corporibus habitum dedit. In universum tamen sestimanti,
Gallos vicinum solum occupasse, credibile est ; eorum sacra
deprehendas, superstitionum persuasione ; sermo baud multum
diversus." *

This passage, it will be observed, contains
statements as to facts, and certain conclusions
deduced from these facts. The matters of fact
asserted are : firstly, that the inhabitants of
Britain exhibit much diversity in their physical
characters ; secondly, that the Caledonians are
red-haired and large-limbed, like the Germans ;
thirdly, that the Silures have curly hair and dark
complexions, like the people of Spain ; fourthly,
that the British people nearest Gaul resemble the
« Galli."

Tacitus, therefore, states positively what the
Caledonians and Silures were like; but the

1 Tacitus Agricola, c. 11.

V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 255

interpretation of what he says about the other
Britons must depend upon what we learn from
other sources as to the characters of these
" Galli." Here the testimony of " divus Julius "
comes in with great force and appropriateness.
Caesar writes : —

" Britarmiae pars interior abiis incolitur, quosnatos in insula
ipsi memoria proditum dicnnt : marituma pars ab iis, qui prsedse
ac belli inferendi causa ex Belgio transierant ; qui omnes fere iis
nominibus civitatnm appellantur quibus orti ex civitatibus eo
pervenerunt, et bello inlato ibi permanserunt atque agros
colere cceperunt." l

From these passages it is obvious that, in the
opinion of Caesar and Tacitus, the southern Britons
resembled the northern Gauls, and especially the
Belgya ; and the evidence of Strabo is decisive as
to the characters in which the two people resem-
bled one another : " The men [of Britain] are
taller than the Kelts, with hair less yellow ; they
are slighter in their persons." 2

The evidence adduced appears to leave no
reasonable ground for doubting that, at the time
of the Roman conquest, Britain contained people
of two types, the one dark and the other fair com-
plexioned, and that there was a certain difference
between the latter in the north and in the south
of Britain : the northern folk being, in the judg-

1 De Bello Gallico, v. 12.

2 The Geography of Strabo. Translated by Hamilton and
Falconer, v. 5.

256 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY v

ment of Tacitus, or, more properly, according to
the information he had received from Agricola
and others, more similar to the Germans than the
latter. As to the distribution of these stocks, all
that is clear is, that the dark people were pre-
dominant in certain parts of the west of the
southern half of Britain, while the fair stock
appears to have furnished the chief elements of
the population elsewhere.

No ancient writer troubled himself with mea-
suring skulls, and therefore there is no direct
evidence as to the cranial characters of the fair
and the dark stocks. The indirect evidence is not
very satisfactory. The tumuli of Britain of pre-
Roman date have yielded two extremely different
forms of skull, the one broad and the other long ;
and the same variety has been observed in the
skulls of the ancient Gauls.1 The suggestion is
obvious that the one form of skull may have been
associated with the fair and the other with the
dark, complexion. But any conclusion of this
kind is at once checked by the reflection that the
extremes of long and short-headedness are to be
met with among the fair inhabitants of Germany
and of Scandinavia at the present day — the south-
western Germans and the Swiss being markedly
broad-headed, while the Scandinavians are as
predominantly long-headed.

1 See Dr. Thurnam " On the Two principal Forms of Ancient
British and Gaulish Skulls."

V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 257

What the natives of Ireland were like at the
time of the Roman conquest of Britain, and for
centuries afterwards, we have no certain know-
ledge : but the earliest trustworthy records prove
the existence, side by side with one another, of a
fair and a dark stock, in Ireland as in Britain.
The long form of skull is predominant among the
ancient, as among modern, Irish.

II. The people termed Gauls, and those called
Germans, "by ike, Romans, did not differ in any
important physical character.

The terms in which the ancient writers describe
both Gauls and Germans are identical. They are
always tall people, with massive limbs, fair skins,
fierce blue eyes, and hair the colour of which
ranges from red to yellow. Zeuss, the great
authority on these matters, affirms broadly that no
distinction in bodily feature is to be found between
the Gauls, the Germans, and the Wends, so far as
their characters are recorded by the old historians ;
and he proves his case by citations from a cloud of
witnesses.

An attempt has been made to show that the
colour of the hair of the Gauls must have differed
very much from that which obtained among the
Germans, on the strength of the story told by
Suetonius (Caligula, 4), that Caligula tried to pass
off Gauls for Germans by picking out the tallest,
and making then " rutilare et summittere
comam."

181

258 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY v

The Baron de Belloguet remarks upon this
passage :

"It was in the very north of Gaul, and near the sea, that
Caligula got up this military comedy. And the fact proves that
the Belgae were already sensibly different from their ancestors,
whom Strabo had found almost identical with their brothers on
the other side of the Rhine. "

But the fact recorded by Suetonius, if fact it be,
proves nothing ; for the Germans themselves were
in the habit of reddening their hair. Ammianus
Marcellinus l tells how, in the year 367 A.D., the
Roman commander, Jovinus, surprised a body of
Alemanni near the town now called Charpeigne, in
the valley of the Moselle ; and how the Roman
soldiers, as, concealed by the thick wood, they
stole upon their unsuspecting enemies, saw that
some were bathing and others " comas rutilantes
ex more." More than two centuries earlier Pliny
gives indirect evidence to the same effect when
he says of soap : —

"Galiiarum hoc inventum rutilandis capillis . . . apud
Germanos majore in usu viris quam foeminis." 3

Here we have a writer who flourished not
very long after the date of the Caligula story,
telling us that the Gauls invented soap for the
purpose of doing that which, according to Sue-
tonius, Caligula forced them to do. And, further

1 Res Gestoc xxvii. * Historia Naturalis, xxviii. 51.

V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 259

the combined and independent testimony of Pliny
and Ammianus assures us that the Germans were
as much in the habit of reddening their hair as
the Gauls. As to De Belloguet's supposition that,
even in Caligula's time, the Gauls had become
darker than their ancestors were, it is directly
contradicted by Ammianus Marcellinus, who knew
the Gauls well. " Celsioris staturse et candidi
poene Galli sunt omnes, et rutili, luminumque
torvitate terribiles," is his description; and it
would fit the Gauls who sacked Rome.

III. In none of the invasions of Britain which
have taken place since the Roman dominion, has
any other type of man been introduced than one or
other of the two which existed during that dominion.

The North Germans, who effected what is
commonly called the Saxon conquest of Britain,
were, most assuredly, a fair, yellow, or red-haired,
blue-eyed, long-skulled people. So were the Danes
and the Norsemen who followed them ; though it
is very possible that the active slave trade which
went on, and the intercourse with Ireland, may
have introduced a certain admixture of the dark
stock into both Denmark and Norway. The
Norman conquest brought in new ethnological
elements, the precise value of which cannot be
estimated with exactness ; but as to their quality,
there can be no question, inasmuch as even the
wide area from which William drew his followers
could yield him nothing but the fair and the dark

260 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY V

types of men, already present in Britain. But
whether the Norman settlers, on the whole,
strengthened the fair or the dark element, is a
problem, the elements of the solution of which
are not attainable.

I am unable to discover any grounds for believ-
ing that a Lapp element has ever entered into the
population of these islands. So far as the physical
evidence goes, it is perfectly consistent with the
hypothesis that the only constituent stocks of that
population, now, or at any other period about
which we have evidence, are the dark whites,
whom I have proposed to call " Melanochroi" and
the fair whites, or " Xanthochroi"

IV. The Xanthochroi and the Melanochroi of
Britain are, speaking broadly, distributed, at
present, as they were in the time of Tacitus ; and
their representatives on the continent of Europe
have the same general distribution as at the earliest
period of winch we have any record.

At the present day, and notwithstanding the
extensive intermixture effected by the movements
consequent on civilization and on political changes,
there is a predominance of dark men in the west,
and of fair men in the east and north, of Britain.
At the present day, as from the earliest times, the
predominant constituents of the riverain popula-
tion of the North Sea and the eastern half of the
British Channel, are fair men. The fair stock
continues in force through Central Europe, until

V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 261

it is lost in Central Asia. Offshoots of this stock
extend into Spain, Italy, and Northern India, and
by way of Syria and North Africa, to the Canary
Islands. They were known in very early times to
the Chinese, and in still earlier to the ancient
Egyptians, as frontier tribes. The Thracians were
notorious for their fair hair and blue eyes many
centuries before our era.

On the other hand, the dark stock predominates
in Southern and Western France, in Spain, along
the Ligurian shore, and in Western and Southern
Italy ; in Greece, Asia, Syria, and North Africa ;
in Arabia, Persia, Afghanistan, and Hindostan,
shading gradually, through all stages of darkening,
into the type of the modern Egyptian, or of the
wild Hill-man of the Dekkan. Nor is there any
record of the existence of a different population
in all these countries.

The extreme north of Europe, and the northern
part of Western Asia, are at present occupied by
a Mongoloid stock, and, in the absence of evidence
to the contrary, may be assumed to have been so
peopled from a very remote epoch. But, as I
have said, I can find no evidence that this stock
ever took part in peopling Britain. Of the three
great stocks of mankind which extend from the
western coast of the great Eurasiatic continent to
its southern and eastern shores, the Mongoloids
occupy a vast triangle, the base of which is the
whole of Eastern Asia, while its apex lies in

262 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY V

Lapland. The Melanochroi, on the other hand,
may be represented as a broad band stretching
from Ireland to Hindostan; while the Xantho-
chroic area lies between the two, thins out, so to
speak, at either end, and mingles, at its margins,
with both its neighbours.

Such is a brief and summary statement of what
I believe to be the chief facts relating to the
physical ethnology of the people of Britain. The
conclusions which I draw from these and other
facts are — (1) That the Melanochroi and the
Xanthochroi are two separate races in the bio-
logical sense of the word race ; (2) That they have
had the same general distribution as at present
from the earliest times of which any record exists
on the continent of Europe ; (3) That the popula-
tion of the British Islands is derived from them,
and from them only.

The people of Europe, however, owe their
national names, not to their physical character-
istics, but to their languages, or to their political
relations ; which, it is plain, need not have the
slightest relation to these characteristics.

Thus, it is quite certain that, in Caesar's time,
Gaul was divided politically into three nationali-
ties— the Belgse, the Celtso, and the Aquitani ;
and that the last were very widely different, both
in language and in physical characteristics, from
the two former. The Belga3 and the Celtae, on
the other hand, differed comparatively little either

V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 263

in physique or in language. On the former point
there is the distinct testimony of Strabo ; as to the
latter, St. Jerome states that the " Galatians had
almost the same language as the Treviri." Now, the
Galatians were emigrant Volcae Tectosages, and
therefore Celtae ; while the Treviri were Belgse.1

At the present day, the physical characters of
the people of Belgic Gaul remain distinct from
those of the people of Aquitaine, notwithstanding
the immense changes which have taken place
since Caesar's time ; but Belgae, Celtae, and Aqui-
tani (all but a mere fraction of the last two,
represented by the Basques and the Bretons) are
fused into one nationality, "le peuple Framjais."
But they have adopted the language of one
set of invaders, and the name of another ; their
original names and languages having almost dis-
appeared. Suppose that the French language
remained as the sole evidence of the existence of
the population of Gaul, would the keenest philo-
loger arrive at any other conclusion than that this
population was essentially and fundamentally a
" Latin " race, which had had some communica-
tion with Celts and Teutons ? Would he so much
as suspect the former existence of the Aquitani ?

Community of language testifies to close contact

between the people who speak the language, but

to nothing else ; philology has absolutely nothing

to do with ethnology, except so far as it suggests

[l This proposition is disputed.— 1894.]

264 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY y

the existence or the absence of such contact.
The contrary assumption, that language is a test
of race, has introduced the utmost confusion into
ethnological speculation, and has nowhere worked
greater scientific and practical mischief than in
the ethnology of the British Islands.

What is known, for certain, about the languages
spoken in these islands and their affinities may, I
believe, be summed up as follows : —

I. At the time of the Roman conquest, one language ,
the Celtic, under two principal dialectical divisions,
the Cymric and the Gaelic, was spoken throughout
the British Islands. Cymric was spoken in Britain,
Gaelic1 in Ireland.

If a language allied to Basque had in earlier
times been spoken in the British Islands, there is
no evidence that any Euskarian-speaking people
remained at the time of the Roman conquest.
The dark and the fair population of Britain alike
spoke Celtic tongues, and therefore the name
" Celt " is as applicable to the one as to the
other.

What was spoken in Ireland can only be sur-
mised by reasoning from the knowledge of later
times ; but there seems to be no doubt that it was
Gaelic.

1 p I have been told that the terms "Cymric" and "Gaelic"
are antiquated and improper. The reader will please substitute
Celtic dialect A and Celtic dialect B for them, and consult, on
this subject, especially with regard to proposition III., Professoi
Rhys' Early Britain.— I

V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 265

II. The Belgce and the Cellce, with the offshoots
of the latter in Asia Minor, spoke dialects of the
Cymric division of Celtic.

The evidence of this proposition lies in the
statement of St. Jerome before cited ; in the
similarity of the names of places in Belgic Gaul
and in Britain; and in the direct comparison of
sundry ancient Gaulish and Belgic words which
have been preserved, with the existing Cymric
dialects, for which I must refer to the learned
work of Brandes.

Formerly, as at the present day, the Cymric
dialects of Celtic were spoken by both the fair
and the dark stocks.

III. There is no record of Gaelic being spoken
anywhere save in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of
Man.

This appears to be the final result of the long
discussions which have taken place on this much-
debated question. As is the case with the Cymric
dialects, Gaelic is now spoken by both dark and
fair stocks.

IV. When the Teutonic languages first became
known, they were spcken only l ~by Xanthochroi, that
is to say, ~by the Germans, the Scandinavians, and
Goths. And they were imported by Xanthochroi
into Gaul and into Britain.

In Gaul, the imported Teutonic dialect has been

P " Only " is too strong a word, as there were doubtless some
Melanochroi among the Teutonic tribes. — 1894.]

266 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY v

completely overpowered by the more or less
modified Latin, which it found already in posses-
sion ; and what Teutonic blood there may be in
modern Frenchmen is not adequately represented
in their language. In Britain, on the contrary,
the Teutonic dialects have overpowered the pre-
existing forms of speech, and the people are vastly
less " Teutonic " than their language. Whatever
may have been the extent to which the Celtic-
speaking population of the eastern half of Britain
was trodden out and supplanted by the Teutonic-
speaking Saxons and Danes, it is quite certain
that no considerable displacement of the Celtic-
speaking people occurred in Cornwall, Wales, or
the Highlands of Scotland; and that nothing
approaching to the extinction of that people took
place in Devonshire, Somerset, or the western
moiety of Britain generally. Nevertheless, the
fundamentally Teutonic English language is now
spoken throughout Britain, except by an insignifi-
cant fraction of the population in Wales and the
Western Highlands. But it is obvious that this
fact affords not the slightest justification for the
common practice of speaking of the present in-
habitants of Britain as an "Anglo-Saxon" race.
It is, in fact, just as absurd as the habit of talking
of the French people as a " Latin " race, because
they speak a language which is, in the main,
derived from Latin. And the absurdity becomes
the more patent when those who have no hesita-

V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 267

tion in calling a Devonshire man, or a Cornish
man, an " Anglo-Saxon," would think it ridiculous
to call a Tipperary man by the same title, though
he and his forefathers may have spoken English
for as long a time as the Cornish man.

Ireland, at the earliest period of which we
have any knowledge, contained, like Britain, a
dark and a fair stock, which, there is every reason
to believe, were identical with the dark and the
fair stocks of Britain. When the Irish first became
known they spoke a Gaelic dialect, and though,
for many centuries, Scandinavians made continual
incursions upon, and settlements among them, the
Teutonic languages made no more way among the
Irish than they did among the French. How
much Scandinavian blood was introduced there is
no evidence to show. But after the conquest of
Ireland by Henry II., the English people, consisting
in part of the descendants of Cymric speakers, and
in part of the descendants of Teutonic speakers,
made good their footing in the eastern half of the
island, as the Saxons and Danes made good theirs
in England ; and did their best to complete the
parallel by attempting the extirpation of the
Gaelic-speaking Irish. And they succeeded to a
considerable extent; a large part of Eastern
Ireland is now peopled by men who are sub-
stantially English by descent, and the English
language has spread over the land far beyond the
limits of English blood.

268 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY v

Ethnologically, the Irish people were originally,
like the people of Britain, a mixture of Melano-
chroi and Xanthochroi. They resembled the
Britons in speaking a Celtic tongue ; but it was a
Gaelic and not a Cymric form of the Celtic lan-
guage. Ireland was untouched by the Roman
conquest, nor do the Saxons seem to have had any
influence upon her destinies, but the Danes and
Norsemen poured in a contingent of Teutonism,
which has been largely supplemented by English
and Scotch efforts.

What, then, is the value of the ethnological
difference between the Englishman of the western
half of England and the Irishman of the eastern
half of Ireland ? For what reason does the one
deserve the name of a " Celt," and not the other ?
And further, if we turn to the inhabitants of the
western half of Ireland, why should the term
"Celts" be applied to them more than to the
inhabitants of Cornwall? And if the name is
applicable to the one as justly as to the other, why
should not intelligence, perseverance, thrift, in-
dustry, sobriety, respect for law, be admitted to be
Celtic virtues ? And why should we not seek for
the cause of their absence in something else than
the idle pretext of " Celtic blood " ?

I have been unable to meet with any answers
to these questions.

V. The Celtic and the Teutonic dialects arc
members of the same great Aryan family of Ian*

V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 269

guages ; "but there is evidence to show that a non-
Aryan language was at one time spoken over a
large extent of the area occupied ~by Mclanochroi in
Europe.

The non-Aryan language here referred to is the
Euskarian, now spoken only by the Basques, but
which seems in earlier times to have been the
language of the Aquitanians and Spaniards, and
may possibly have extended much further to the
East. Whether it has any connection with the
Ligurian and Oscan dialects are questions upon
which, of course, I do not presume to offer any
opinion. But it is important to remark that it
is a language the area of which has gradually
diminished without any corresponding extirpation
of the people who primitively spoke it ; so that the
people of Spain and of Aquitaine at the present
day must be largely " Euskarian" by descent in
just the same sense as the Cornish men are
" Celtic " by descent.

Such seem to me to be the main facts respect-
ing the ethnology of the British islands and of
Western Europe, which may be said to be fairly
established. The hypothesis by which I think
(with De Belloguet and Thurnam) the facts may
best be explained is this : In very remote times
Western Europe and the British islands were
inhabited by the dark stock, or the Melanochroi,
alone, and these Melanochroi spoke dialects allied
to the Euskarian. The Xanthochroi, spreading

270 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY v

over the great Eurasiatic plains westward, and
speaking Aryan dialects, gradually invaded the
territories of the Melanochroi. The Xanthochroi,
who thus came into contact with the Western
Melanochroi, spoke a Celtic language; and that
Celtic language, whether Cymric or Gaelic, spread
over the Melanochroi far beyond the limits of
intermixture of blood, supplanting Euskarian, just
as English and French have supplanted Celtic.
Even as early as Caesar's time, I suppose that the
Euskarian was everywhere, except in Spain and in
Aquitaine, replaced by Celtic, and thus the Celtic
speakers were no longer of one ethnological stock,
but of two. Both in Western Europe and in
England a third wave of language — in the one
case Latin, in the other Teutonic — has spread over
the same area. In Western Europe, it has left a
fragment of the primary Euskarian in one corner
of the country, and a fragment of the secondary
Celtic in another. In the British islands, only
outlying pools of the secondary linguistic wave
remain in Wales, the Highlands, Ireland, and the
Isle of Man. If this hypothesis is a sound one, it
follows that the name of Celtic is not properly
applicable to the Melanochroic or dark stock of
Europe. They are merely, so to speak, secondary
Celts. The primary and aboriginal Celtic-speaking
people are Xanthochroi — the typical Gauls of the
ancient writers, and the close allies by blood,
customs, and language, of the Germans..

VI

THE ARYAN QUESTION AND PRE-
HISTORIC MAN

[1890]

THE rapid increase of natural knowledge, which
is the chief characteristic of our age, is effected in
various ways. The main army of science moves
to the conquest of new worlds slowly and surely,
nor ever cedes an inch of the territory gained.
But the advance is covered and facilitated by the
ceaseless activity of clouds of light troops provided
with a weapon — always efficient, if not always an
arm of precision — the scientific imagination. It
is the business of these enfants perdus of science
to make raids into the realm of ignorance where-
ever they see, or think they see, a chance ; and
cheerfully to accept defeat, or it may be annihila-
tion, as the reward of error. Unfortunately, the
public, which watches the progress of the cam-
paign, too often mistakes a dashing incursion of
the Uhlans for a forward movement of the main

272 THE ARYAN QUESTION TI

body ; fondly imagining that the strategic move-
ment to the rear, which occasionally follows, in-
dicates a battle lost by science. And it must be
confessed that the error is too often justified by
the effects of the irrepressible tendency which
men of science share with all other sorts of men
known to me, to be impatient of that most whole-
some state of mind — suspended judgment; to
assume the objective truth of speculations which,
from the nature of the evidence in their favour,
can have no claim to be more than working hypo-
theses.

The history of the " Aryan question " affords a
striking illustration of these general remarks.

About a century ago, Sir William Jones pointed
out the close alliance of the chief European
languages with Sanskrit and its derivative dia-
lects now spoken in India. Brilliant and laborious
philologists, in long succession, enlarged and
strengthened this position, until the truth that
Sanskrit, Zend, Armenian, Greek, Latin, Lithua-
nian, Slavonian, German, Celtic, and so on, stand
to one another in the relation of descendants from
a common stock, became firmly established, and
thenceforward formed part of the permanent
acquisitions of science. Moreover, the term
" Aryan " is very generally, if not universally,
accepted as a name for the group of languages
thus allied. Hence, when one speaks of " Aryan
languages," no hypothetical assumptions are in-

Vi THE ARYAN QUESTION 273

volved. It is a matter of fact that such languages
exist, that they present certain substantial and
formal relations, and that convention sanctions
the name applied to them. But the close con-
nection of these widely differentiated languages
remains altogether inexplicable, unless it is ad-
mitted that they are modifications of an original
relatively undifferentiated tongue; just as the
intimate affinities of the Romance languages —
French, Italian, Spanish, and the rest — would be
incomprehensible if there were no Latin. The
original or " primitive Aryan " tongue, thus postu-
lated, unfortunately no longer exists. It is a hypo-
thetical entity, which corresponds with the " primi-
tive stock" of generic and higher groups among
plants and animals ; and the acknowledgment of
its former existence, and of the process of evolu-
tion which has brought about the present state
of things philological, is forced upon us by
deductive reasoning of similar cogency to that
employed about things biological. j

Thus, the former existence of a body of re-
latively uniform dialects, which may be called
primitive Aryan, may be added to the stock of
definitely acquired truths. But it is obvious that,
in the absence of writing or of phonographs, the
existence of a language implies that of speakers.
If there were primitive Aryan dialects, there
must have been primitive Aryan people who
used them ; and these people must have resided

182

274 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi

somewhere or other on the earth's surface. Hence
philology, without stepping beyond its legitimate
bounds and keeping speculation within the limits
of bare necessity, arrives, not only at the con-
ceptions of Aryan languages and of a primitive
Aryan language ; but of a primitive Aryan people
and of a primitive Aryan home, or country occupies
by them.

But where was this home of the Aryans ? When
the labours of modern philologists began, Sanskrit
was the most archaic of all the Aryan languages
known to them. It appeared to present the
qualifications required in the parental or primitive
Aryan. Brilliant Uhlans made a charge at this
opening. The scientific imagination seated the
primitive Aryans in the valley of the Ganges ; and
showed, as in a visior? the successive columns,
guided by enterprising Brahmins, which set out
thence to people the regions of the western world
with Greeks and Celts and Germans. But the
progress of philology itself sufficed to show that
this Balaclava charge, however magnificent, was
not profitable warfare. The internal evidence of
the Vedas proved that their composers had not
reached the Ganges. On the other hand, the
comparison of Zend with Sanskrit left no
alternative open to the assumption that these
languages were modifications of an original Indo-
Iranian tongue, spoken by a people of whom the
Aryans of India and those of Persia were offshoots,

vi THE ARYAN QUESTION 276

and who could therefore be hardly lodged else-
where than on the frontiers of both Persia and
India — that is to say, somewhere in the region
which is at present known under the names of
Turkestan, 'Afghanistan, and Kafiristan. Thus
far, it can hardly be doubted that we are well
within the ground of which science has taken
enduring possession. But the Uhlans were not
content to remain within the lines of this surely-
won position. For some reason, which is not quite
clear to me, they thought fit to restrict the home of
the primitive Aryans to a particular part of the
region in question ; to lodge them amidst the bleak
heights of the long range of the Hindoo Koosh
and on the inhospitable plateau of Pamir. From
their hives in these secluded valleys and wind-
swept wastes, successive swarms of Celts and
Greco-Latins, Teutons and Slavs, were thrown off
to settle, after long wanderings, in distant Europe.
The Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir theory, once enunciated,
gradually hardened into a sort of dogma; and
there have not been wanting theorists, who laid
down the routes of the successive bands of emi-
grants with as much confidence as if they had access
to the records of the office of a primitive Aryan
Quartermaster-General. It is really singular to
observe the deference which has been shown, and
is yet sometimes shown, to a speculation which
can, at best, claim to be regarded as nothing better
than a somewhat risky working hypothesis.

276 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi

Forty years ago, the credit of the Hindoo-
Koosh-Pamir theory had risen almost to that of
an axiom. The first person to instil doubt of its
value into my mind was the late Robert Gordon
Latham, a man of great learning and singular
originality, whose attacks upon the Hindoo-
Kooshite doctrine could scarcely have failed as
completely as they did, if his great powers had
been bestowed upon making his books not only
worthy of being read, but readable. The im-
pression left upon my mind, at that time, by
various conversations about the " Sarmatian hypo-
thesis," which my friend wished to substitute for
the Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir speculation, was that
the one and the other rested pretty much upon a
like foundation of guess-work. That there was
no sufficient reason for planting the primitive
Aryans in the Hindoo Koosh, or in Pamir, seemed
plain enough ; but that there was little better
ground, on the evidence then adduced, for settling
them in the region at present occupied by Western
Russia, or Podolia, appeared to me to be not less
plain. The most I thought Latham proved was,
that the Aryan people of Indo-Iranian speech
were just as likely to have come from Europe, as
the Aryan people of Greek, or Teutonic, or Celtic
speech from Asia. Of late years, Latham's views,
so long neglected, or mentioned merely as an
example of insular eccentricity, have been taken
up and advocated with much ability in Germany

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 277

as well as in this country — principally by philo-
logists. Indeed, the glory of Hindou-Koosh-Pamir
seems altogether to have departed. Professor
Max Mtiller, to whom Aryan philology owes so
much, will not say more now, than that he holds
by the conviction that the seat of the primitive
Aryans was " somewhere in Asia." Dr. Schrader
sums up in favour of European Russia ; while
Herr Penka would have us transplant the home
of the primitive Aryans from Pamir in the far
east to the Scandinavian peninsula in the far west.
I must refer those who desire to acquaint
themselves with the philological arguments on
which these conclusions are based to the recently
published works of Dr. Schrader and Canon Tay-
lor ; l and to Penka's " Die Herkunft der Arier,"
which, in spite of the strong spice of the Uhlan
which runs through it, I have found extremely
well worth study. ' I do not pretend to be able to
look at the Aryan question under any but the
biological aspect; to which I now turn.

Any biologist who studies the history of the
Aryan question, and, taking the philological facts
on trust, regards it exclusively from the point of
view of anthropology, will observe that, very
early, the purely biological conception of " race "

1 Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples.
Translated by F. B. Jevons, M.A., 1890. Taylor, The Origin
of the Aryans, 1890.

278 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi

illegitimately mixed itself up with the ideas de-
rived from pure philology. It is quite proper to
speak of Aryan "people," because, as we havo
seen, the existence of the language implies that of
a people who speak it ; it might be equally per-
missible to call Latin people all those who speak
Romance dialects. But, just as the application of
the term Latin " race " to the divers people who
speak Romance languages, at the present day, is
none the less absurd because it is common ; so, it
is quite possible, that it may be equally wrong to
call the people who spoke the primitive Aryan
dialects and inhabited the primitive home, the
Aryan race. " Aryan " is properly a term of

^'classification used in philology. "Race" is the
name of a sub-division of one of those groups of
living things which are called " species " in the
technical language of Zoology and Botany ; and
the term connotes the possession of characters
distinct from those of the other members of the
species, which have a strong tendency to appeal
in the progeny of all members of the races.
Such race-characters may be either bodily or men-
tal, though in practice, the latter, as less easy of
observation and definition, can rarely be taken

jjlnto account. Language is rooted half in the
bodily and half in the mental nature of man. The
vocal sounds which form the raw materials of
language could not be produced without a peculiar
conformation of the organs of speech ; the enuncia-

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 279

tion of duly accented syllables would be impossible
without the nicest co-ordination of the action of
the muscles which move these organs ; and such
co-ordination depends on the mechanism of certain
portions of the nervous system. It is therefore
conceivable that the structure of this highly com-
plex speaking apparatus should determine a man's
linguistic potentiality ; that is to say, should
enable him to use a language of one class and not
of another. It is further conceivable that a par-
ticular linguistic potentiality should be inherited
and become as good a race mark as any other. As
a matter of fact, it is not proven that the linguis-
tic potentialities of all men are the same. It is
affirmed, for example, that, in the United States,
the enunciation and the timbre of the voice of an
American-born negro, however thoroughly he may
have learned English, can be readily distinguished
from that of a white man. But, even admitting
that differences may obtain among the various
races of men, to this extent, I do not think that
there is any good ground for the supposition that
an infant of any race would be unable to learn,
and to use with ease, the language of any other
race of men among whom it might be brought
up. History abundantly proves the transmission
of languages from some races to others ; and there
is no evidence, that I know of, to show that any
race is incapable of substituting a foreign idiom
for its native tongue.

From these considerations it follows that com-

280 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI

rnunity of language is no proof of unity of race, is
not even presumptive evidence of racial identity.1
All that it does prove is that, at some time or
other, free and prolonged intercourse has taken
place between the speakers of the same language.
Philology, therefore, while it may have a perfect
right to postulate the existence of a primitive
Aryan "people," has no business to substitute
" race " for " people." The speakers of primitive
Aryan may have been a mixture of two or more
races, just as are the speakers of English and
' of French, at the present time.

The older philological ethnologists felt the
difficulty which arose out of their identification of
linguistic with racial affinity, but were not dis-
mayed by it. Strong in the prestige of their
great discovery of the unity of the Aryan tongues,
they were quite prepared to make the philological
and the biological categories fit, by the exercise
of a little pressure on that about which they
knew less. And their judgment was often un-

1 Canon Taylor (Origin of the Aryans, p 31) states that " Cuno
.... was the first to insist on what is now looked on as an axiom
in ethnology — that race is not co-extensive with language," in
a work published in 1871. I may be permitted to quote a
passage from a lecture delivered on the 9th of January, 1870,
which brought me into a great deal of trouble. "Physical,
mental, and moral peculiarities go with blood and not with
language. In the United States the negroes have spoken
English for generations ; but no one on that ground would call
them Englishmen, or expect them to differ physically, mentally,
or morally from other negroes." — Pall Mall Gazette, Jan. 10,
1870. But the " axiom in ethnology " had been implied, if not
enunciated, before my time ; for example, by Desmoulins in
1826 (See above p. 215.)

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 281

consciously warped by strong monogenistic pro-
clivities, which, at bottom, however respectable
and philanthropic their origin, had nothing to
do with science. So the patent fact that men
of Aryan speech presented widely diverse racial
characters was explained away by maintaining
that the physical differentiation was post-Aryan ;
to put it broadly, that the Aryans in Hindoo-
Koosh-Pamir were truly of one race ; but that,
while one colony, subjected to the sweltering
heat of the Gangetic plains, had fined down and
darkened into the Bengalee, another had bleached
and shot up, under the cool and misty skies of the
north, into the semblance of Pomeranian Grena-
diers ; or of blue-eyed, fair-skinned, six-foot Scotch
Highlanders. I do not know that any of the
Uhlans who fought so vigorously under this flag
are left now. I doubt if any one is prepared to
say that he believes that the influence of external
conditions, alone, accounts for the wide physical
differences between Englishmen and Bengalese.
So far as India is concerned, the internal evidence
of the old literature sufficiently proves that the
Aryan invaders were " white " men. It is hardly
to be doubted that they intermixed with the
dark Dravidian aborigines ; and that the high-
caste Hindoos are what they are in virtue of the
Aryan blood which they have inherited, l and of

1 I am unable to discover good grounds for the severity of
the criticism, in the name of " the anthropologists," with which
Professor Max Miiller's assertion that the same blood runs in the

282 THE ARYAN QUESTION vx

the selective influence of their surroundings
operating on the mixture.

The assumption that, as there must have been
a primitive Aryan people, in the philological sense,
so that people must have constituted a race in the
biological sense, is pretty generally made in mod-
ern discussions of the Aryan problem. But
whether the men of the primitive Aryan race
were blonds or brunets, whether they had long or
round heads, were tall or were short, are hotly
debated questions, into the discussion of which
considerations quite foreign to science are some-
times imported. The combination of swarthiness
with stature above the average and a long skull,
confer upon me the serene impartiality of a mon-
grel ; and, having given this pledge of fair dealing,
I proceed to state the case for the hypothesis I am
inclined to adopt. In doing so, I am aware that
I deliberately take the shilling of the recruiting
sergeant of the Light Brigade, and I warn all and
sundry that such is the case.

Looking at the discussions which have taken

veins of English soldiers " as in the veins of the dark Bengalese,"
and that there is " a legitimate relationship between Hindoo,
Greek, and Teuton," has been visited. So i'ar as I know any-
thing about anthropology, I should say that these statements
may be correct literally, and probably are so substantially. I
do not know of any good reason for the physical differences
between a high-caste Hindoo and a Dravidian, except the Aryan
blood in the veins of the former; and the strength of the infusion
is probably quite as great in some Hindoos as in some English
soldiers.

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 283

place from a purely anthropological point of
view, the first point which has struck me is
that the problem is far more complicated and
difficult than many of the disputants appear
to imagine ; and the second, that the data
upon which we have to go are grievously in-
sufficient in extent and in precision. Our histori-
cal records cover such an infmitesimally small
extent of the past life of humanity, that we obtain
little help from them. Even so late as 1500 B.C.,
northern Eurasia lies in historical darkness, ex-
cept for such glimmer of light as may be thrown
here and there by the literatures of Egypt and of
Babylonia. Yet, at that time, it is probable that
Sanskrit, Zend, and Greek, to say nothing of other
Aryan tongues, had long been differentiated from
primitive Aryan. Even a thousand years later,
little enough accurate information is to be had
about the racial characters of the European and
Asiatic tribes known to the Greeks. We are
thrown upon such resources as archaeology and
human palaeontology have to offer, and notwith-
standing the remarkable progress made of late
years, they are still meagre. Nevertheless, it
strikes me that, from the purely anthropological
side, there is a good deal to be said in favour of
the two propositions maintained by the new
school of philologists ; first, that the people who
spoke " primitive Aryan " were a distinct and
well-marked race of mankind ; and, secondly, that

284 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi

the area of the distribution of this race, in prim-
aeval times, lay in Europe, rather than in Asia.

For the last two thousand years, at least, the
southern half of Scandinavia and the opposite or
southern shores of the Baltic have been occupied
by a race of mankind possessed of very definite
characters. Typical specimens have tall and
massive frames, fair complexions, blue eyes, and
yellow or reddish hair — that is to say, they are
pronounced blonds. Their skulls are long, in the
sense that the breadth is usually less, often much
less, than four-fifths of the length, and they are
usually tolerably high. But in this last respect
they vary. Men of this blond, long-headed race
abound from eastern Prussia to northern Belgium ;
they are met with in northern France and are
common in some parts of our own islands. The
people of Teutonic speech, Goths, Saxons, Ale-
manni, and Franks, who poured forth out of the
regions bordering the North Sea and the Baltic, to
the destruction of the Roman Empire, were men
of this race ; and the accounts of the ancient his-
torians of the incursions of the Gauls into Italy
and Greece, between the fifth and the second
centuries B.C., leave little doubt that their hordes
were largely, if not wholly, composed of similar
men. The contents of numerous interments in
southern Scandinavia prove that, as far back as
archaeology takes us into the so-called neolithic
age, the great majority of the inhabitants had the

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 285

same stature and cranial peculiarities as at
present, though their bony fabric bears marks of
somewhat greater ruggedness and savagery. There
is no evidence that the country was occupied by
men before the advent of these tall, blond long-
heads. But there is proof of the presence, along
with the latter, of a small percentage of people
with broad skulls ; skulls, that is, the breadth of
which is more, often very much more, than four-
fifths of the length.

At the present day, in whatever direction we
travel inland from the continental area occupied
by the blond long-heads, whether south-west, into
central France ; south, through the Walloon pro-
vinces of Belgium into eastern France ; into
Switzerland, South Germany, and the Tyrol ; or
south-east, into Poland and Russia ; or north, into
Finland and Lapland, broad-heads make their
appearance, in force, among the long-heads. And,
eventually, we find ourselves among people who
are as regularly broad-headed as the Swedes and
North Germans are long-headed. As a general
rule, in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and South
Germany, the increase in the proportion of broad
skulls is accompanied by the appearance of a larger
and larger proportion of men of brunet com-
plexion and of a lower stature ; until, in central
France and thence eastwards, through the Ceven-
nes and the Alps of Dauphiny, Savoy, and Pied-
mont, to the western plains of North Italy, the

286 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi

tall blond long-heads1 practically disappear, and
are replaced by short brunet broad-heads. TLe
ordinary Savoyard may be described in terms
the converse of those which apply to the
ordinary Swede. He is short, swarthy, dark-eyed,
dark-haired, and his skull is very broad. Between
the two extreme types, the one seated on the
shores of the North Sea and the Baltic, and the
other on those of the Mediterranean, there are all
sorts of intermediate forms, in which breadth of
skull may be found in tall and in short blond men,
and in tall brunet men.

There is much reason to believe that the brunet
broad-heads, now met with in central France and
in the west central European highlands, have in-
habited the same region, not only throughout the
historical period, but long before it commenced ;
and it is probable that their area of occupation
was formerly more extensive. For, if we leave

1 I may plead the precedent of the good English words
"block-head" and " thick-head " for "broad-head" and "long-
head," but I cannot say that they are elegant. • I might have
employed the technical terms brachycephali and dolichocephali.
But if cannot be said that they are much more graceful ; and,
moreover, they are sometimes employed in senses different from
that which I have given in the definition of broad -heads and
long heads. The cephalic index is a number which expresses the
relation of the breadth to the length of a skull, taking the
latter as 100. Therefore "broad-heads" have the cephalic
index above 80 and " long-heads " have it below 80. The phy-
siological value of the difference is unknown ; its morphological
value depends upon the observed fact of the constancy of the
occurrence of either long skulls or broad skulls among large
bodies of mankind.

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 287

aside the comparatively late incursions of the
Asiatic races, the centre of eruption of the invaders
of the southern moiety of Europe has been
situated in the north and west. In the case of the
Teutonic inroads upon the Empire of Rome, it
undoubtedly lay in the area now occupied by the
blond long-heads ; and, in that of the antecedent
Gaulish invasions, the physical characters ascribed
to the leading tribes point to the same conclusion.
Whatever the causes which led to the breaking
out of bounds of the blond long-heads, in mass, at
particular epochs, the natural increase in numbers
of a vigorous and fertile race must always have
impelled them to press upon their neighbours,
and thereby afford abundant occasions for inter-
mixture. If, at any given pre-historic time, wo
suppose the lowlands verging on the Baltic and
the North Sea to have been inhabited by pure
blond long-heads, while the central highlands were
occupied by pure brunet short-heads, the two
would certainly meet and intermix in course of
time, in spite of the vast belt of dense forest
which extended, almost uninterruptedly, from the
Carpathians to the Ardennes; and the result
would be such an irregular gradation of the one
type into the other as we do, in fact, meet with.

On the south-east, east, and north-east, through-
out what was once the kingdom of Poland, and in
Finland, the preponderance of broad heads goes
along with a wide prevalence of blond complexion

288 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi

and of good stature. In the extreme north, on
the other hand, marked broad-headedness is com-
bined with low stature, swarthiness, and more or
less strongly mongolian features, in the Lapps.
And it is to be observed that this type prevails
increasingly to the eastward, among the central
Asiatic populations.

The population of the British Islands, at the
present time, offers the two extremes of the tall
blond and the short brunet types. The tall blond
long-heads resemble those of the continent ; but
our short' brunet race is long-headed. Brunet
broad-heads, such as those met with in the
central European highlands, do not exist among
us. This absence of any considerable number of
distinctly broad-headed people (say with the
cephalic index above 81 or 82) in the modern
population of the United Kingdom is the more
remarkable, since the investigations of the late Dr.
Thurnam, and others, proved the existence of a
large proportion of tall broad-heads among the
people interred in British tumuli of the neolithic
a,ge. It would seem that these broad-skulled
immigrants have been absorbed by an older long-
skulled population ; just as, in South Germany,
the long-headed Alemanni have been absorbed by
the older broad-heads. The short brunet long-
heads are not peculiar to our islands. On the
contrary, they abound in western France and in
Spain, while they predominate in Sardinia, Corsica,

71 THE ARYAN QUESTION 289

and South Italy, and, it may be, occupied a much
larger area in ancient times.

Thus, in the region which has been under con-
sideration, there are evidences of the existence of
four races of men — (1) blond long-heads of tall
stature, (2) brunet broad-heads of short stature, (3)
mongoloid brunet broad-heads of short stature, (4)
brunet long-heads of short stature. The regions
in which these races appear with least admixture
are — (1) Scandinavia, JNorth Germany, and parts
of the British Islands; (2) central France, the
central European highlands, and Piedmont; (3)
Arctic and eastern Europe, central Asia ; (4) the
western parts of the British Islands and of France ;
Spain, South Italy. And the inhabitants of the
localities which lie between these foci present the
intermediate gradations, such as short blond
long-heads, and tall brunet short-heads and long-
heads which might be expected to result from
their intermixture. The evidence at present extant
is consistent with the supposition that the blond
long-heads, the brunet broad -heads, and the brunet
long-heads have existed in Europe throughout
historic times, and very far back into pre-historic
times. There is no proof of any migration of
Asiatics into Europe, west of the basin of the
Dnieper, down to the time of Attila. On the
contrary, the first great movements of the
European population of which there is any con-
clusive evidence is that series of Gaulish invasions

183

290 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI

of the east and south, which ultimately extended
from North Italy as far as Galatia in Asia Minor.

It is now time to consider the relations between
the phenomena of racial distribution, as thus de-
fined, and those of the distribution of languages.
The blond long-heads of Europe speak, or have
spoken, Lithuanian, Teutonic, or Celtic dialects,
and they are not known to have ever used any
but these Aryan languages. A large proportion
of the brunet broad-heads once spoke the Ligu-
rian and the Bhsetic dialects, which are believed
to have been non-Aryan. But, when the Romans
made acquaintance with Transalpine Gaul, the
inhabitants of that country between the Garonne
and the Seine (Caesar's Oeltica) seem, at any rate
for the most part, to have spoken Celtic dialects.
The brunet long-heads of Spain and of France ap-
pear to have used a non-Aryan language, that
Euskarian which still lives on the shores of the
Bay of Biscay. In Britain there is no certain
knowledge of their use of any but Celtic tongues.
What they spoke in the Mediterranean islands and
in South Italy does not appear.

The blond broad-heads of Poland and West
Russia form part of a people who, when they first
made their appearance in history, occupied the
marshy plains imperfectly drained by the Vistula,
on the west, the Duna, on the north, and the
Dnieper and Bug, on the south. They were

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 291

known to their neighbours as Wends, and among
themselves as Serbs and Slavs. The Slavonic
languages spoken by these people are said to be
most closely allied to that of the Lithuanians,
who lay upon their northern border. The Slavs
resemble the South Germans in the predominance
of broad -heads among them, while stature and
complexion vary from the, often tall, blonds who
prevail in Poland and great Russia to the, often
short, brunets common elsewhere. There is cer-
tainly nothing in the history of the Slav people
to interfere with the supposition that, from very
early times, they have been a mixed race. For
their country lies between that of the tall blond
long-heads on the north, that of the short brunet
broad-heads of the European type on the west,
and that of the short brunet broad-heads of the
Asiatic type on the east : and, throughout their
history, they have either thrust themselves among
their neighbours, or have been overrun and
trampled down by them. Gauls and Goths have
traversed their country, on their way to the east
and south : Finno-tataric people, on their way to
the west, have not only done the like, but have
held them in subjection for centuries. On the
other hand, there have been times when their
western frontier advanced beyond the Elbe; in-
deed, it is asserted that they have sent colonies
to Holland and even as far as southern England.
A large part of eastern Germany; Bohemia,

292 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi

Moravia, Hungary; the lower valley of the
Danube and the Balkan peninsula, have been
largely or completely Slavonised ; and the
Slavonic rule and language, which once had
trouble to hold their own in West Russia and
Little Russia, have now extended their sway over
all the Finno-tataric populations of Great Russia ;
while they are advancing, among those of central
Asia, up to the frontiers of India on the south
and to the Pacific on the extreme east. Thus it
is hardly possible that fewer than three races
should have contributed to the formation of the
Slavonic people ; namely, the blond long-heads,
the European brunet broad-heads, and the Asiatic
brunet broad-heads. And, in the absence of
evidence to the contrary, it is certainly permissible
to suppose that it is the first race which has fur-
nished the blond complexion and the stature
observable in so many, especially of the northern
Slavs, and that the brunet complexion and the
broad skulls must be attributed to the other two.
But, if that supposition is permissible, then the
Aryan form and substance of the Slavonic lan-
guages may also be fairly supposed to have pro-
ceeded from the blond long-heads. They could
not have come from the Asiatic brunet broad-
heads, who all speak non-Aryan languages; and
the presumption is against their coming from the
brunet broad-heads of the central European high-
lands, among whom an apparently non-AryaD

vr THE ARYAN QUESTION 293

language was largely spoken, even in historical
times.

In the same way, the tall blond tribes among
the Fins may be accounted for as the product of
admixture. The great majority of the Finno-
tataric people are brunet broad-heads of the
Asiatic type. But that the Fins proper have long
been in contact with Aryans is evidenced by the
many words borrowed from Aryan which their
language contains. Hence there has been abun-
dant opportunity for the mixture of races ; and
for the transference to some of the Fins of more
or fewer of the physical characters of the Aryans
and vice versa. On any hypothesis, the frontier
between Aryan and Finno-tataric people must
have extended across west-central Asia for a very
long period ; and, at any point of this frontier,
it has been possible that mixed races of
blond Fins or of brunet Aryans should be
formed.

So much for the European people who now
speak Celtic, or Teutonic, or Slavonian, or Lithu-
anian tongues ; or who are known to have spoken
them, before the supersession of so many of the
early native dialects by the Romance modifications
of the language of Rome. With respect to the
original speakers of Greek and Latin, the un-
ravelling of the tangled ethnology of the Balkan
peninsula and the ordering of the chaos of that
of Italy are enterprises upon which I do not propose

294 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI

to enter. In regard to the first, however, there
are a few tolerably satisfactory data. The ancient
Thracians were proverbially blue-eyed and fair-
haired. Tall blonds were common among the
ancient Greeks, who were a long-headed people ;
and the Sphakiots of Crete, probably the purest
representatives of the old Hellenes in existence,
are tall and blond. But considering that Greek
colonisation was taking place on a great scale in
the eighth century B.C., and that, centuries earlier
and later, the restless Hellene had been fighting^
trading, plundering and kidnapping, on both sides
of the ^Egean, and perhaps as far as the shores of
Syria and of Egypt, it is probable that, even at the
dawn of history, the maritime Greeks were a very
mixed race. On the other hand, the Dorians may
well have preserved the original type ; and their
famous migration may be the earliest known ex-
ample of those movements of the Aryan race
which were, in later times, to change the face of
Europe. Analogy perhaps justifies a guess, that
those ethnological shadows, the Pelasgi, may have
been an earlier mixed population, like that of
Western Gaul and of Britain before the Teutonic
invasion. At any rate, the tall blond long-heads
are so well represented in the oldest history
of the Balkan peninsula, that they may be
credited with the Aryan languages spoken there.
And it may be that the tradition which peopled
Phrygia with Thracians represents a real move-

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 295

ment of the Aryan race into Asia Minor, such
as that which in after years carried the Gauls
thither.

The difficulties in the way of a probable identi-
fication of the people among whom the various
dialects of the Latin group developed themselves,
with any race traceable in Italy in historical
times, are very great. In addition to the Italic
" aborigines " northern Italy was peopled by
Ligurian brunet broad-heads ; with Gauls, prob-
ably, to a large extent, blond long- heads;
with Illyrians, about whom nothing is known.
Besides these, there were those perplexing
people the Etruscans, who seem to have been,
originally, brunet long-heads. South Italy and
Sicily present a contingent of " Sikels," Phoenicians
and Greeks; while over all, in comparatively
modern times, follows a wash of Teutonic blood.
The Latin dialects arose, no one knows how,
among the tribes of Central Italy, encompassed
on all sides by people of the most various physical
characters, who were gradually absorbed into the
eternally widening maw of Rome, and there, by
dint of using the same speech, became the first
example of that wonderful ethnological hotch-
potch miscalled the Latin race. The only
trustworthy guide here is archaeological in-
vestigation. A great advance will have been
made when the race characters of the pre-historic
people of the terremare (who are identified by

296 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI

Helbig1 with the primitive Umbrians) become
fully known.

I cannot learn that the ancient literatures of
India and of Persia give any definite information
about the complexion of the Indo- Iranians, beyond
conveying the impression that they were what we
vaguely call white men. But it is important to
note that tall blond people make their appearance
sporadically among the Tadjiks of Persia and of
Turkestan; that the Siah-posh and Galtchas of
the mountainous barrier between Turkestan and
India are such ; and that the same characters
obtain largely among the Kurds on the western
frontier of Persia, at the present day. The Kurds
and the Galtchas are generally broad -headed, the
others are long-headed. These people and the
ancient Alans thus form a series of stepping-stones
between the blond Aryans of Europe and those of
Asia, standing up amidst the flood of Firmo-
tataric people which has inundated the rest of the
interval between the sources of the Dnieper and
those of the Oxus. If only more was known
about the Sarmatians and the Scythians of the
oldest historians, it is not improbable, I think,
that we should discover that, even in historical
times, the area occupied by the blond long-heads

1 Die Italiker in der Poebene, 1879. See for much valuable
information respecting the races of the Balkan and Italic penin-
sula?, Zampa's essay, '' Vergleichende Anthropologische Ethno-
graphic von Apulien," Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic, xviii., 1886.

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 297

of Aryan speech has been, at least temporarily,
continuous from the shores of the North Sea to
central Asia.

Suppose it to be admitted, as a fair working hy-
pothesis, that the blond long-heads once extended
without a break over this vast area, and that all
the Aryan tongues have been developed out of
their original speech, the question respecting the
home of the race when the various families of
Aryan speech were in the condition of inceptive
dialects remains open. For all that, at first,
appears to the contrary, it may have been in the
west, or in the east, or anywhere between the
two. In seeking for a solution of this obscure
problem, it is an important preliminary to grasp
the truth that the Aryan race must be much
older than the primitive Aryan speech. It is not
to be seriously imagined that the latter sprang
suddenly into existence, by the act of a jealous
Deity, apparently unaware of the strength of man's
native tendency towards confusion of speech. But
if all the diverse languages of men were not
brought suddenly into existence, in order to frus-
trate the plans of the audacious bricklayers of the
plain of Shinar; if this professedly historical
statement is only another " type," and primitive
Aryan, like all other languages, was built up by a
secular process of development, the blond long-
heads, among whom it grew into shape, must for

298 THE ARYAN QUESTION V1

ages have been, philologically speaking, non-
Aryans, or perhaps one should say " pro-Aryans."
I suppose it may be safely assumed that Sanskrit
and Zend and Greek were fully differentiated in
the year 1500 B.C. If so, how much further back
must the existence of the primitive Aryan, from
which these proceeded, be dated ? And how
much further yet, that real ju/ventus mundi (so
far as man is concerned) when primitive Aryan
was in course of formation ? And how much
further still, the differentiation of the nascent
Aryan blond long-head race from the primitive
stock of mankind ?

If any one maintains that the blond long-headed
people, among whom, by the hypothesis, the
primitive Aryan language was generated may have
formed a separate race as far back as the pleisto-
cene epoch, when the first unquestionable records
of man make their appearance, I do not see that
he goes beyond possibility — though, of course, that
is a very different thing from proving his case.
But, if the blond long-heads are thus ancient, the
problem of their primitive seat puts on an alto-
gether new aspect. Speculation must take into
account climatal and geographical conditions
widely different from those which obtain in
northern Eurasia at the present day. During
much of the vast length of the pleistocene period,
it would seem that men could no more have lived
either in Britain north of the Thames, or in

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 299

Scandinavia, or in northern Germany, or in
northern Russia, than they can live now in the
interior of Greenland, seeing that the land was
covered by a great ice sheet like that which at
present shrouds the latter country. At that
epoch, the blond long-heads cannot reasonably be
supposed to have occupied the regions in which
we meet with them in the oldest times of which
history has kept a record.

But even if we are content to assume a vastly
less antiquity for the Aryan race ; if we only make
the assumption, for which there is considerable
positive warranty, that it has existed in Europe
ever since the end of the pleistocene period —
when the fauna and flora assumed approximately
their present condition and the state of things
called Recent by geologists set in — we have to
reckon with a distribution of land and water, not
only very different from that which at present ob-
tains in northern Eurasia, but of such a nature
that it can hardly fail to have exerted a great
influence on the development and the distribution
of the races of mankind. (See page 250, note 2.)

At the present time, four great separate bodies
of water, the Black Sea, the Caspian, the Sea of
Aral, and Lake Balkash, occupy the southern end
of the vast plains which extend from the Arctic
Sea to the highlands of the Balkan peninsula, of
Asia Minor, of Persia, of Afghanistan, and of the
high plateaus of central Asia as far as the Altai.

300 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi

They lie for the most part between the parallels
of 40° and 50° N. and are separated by wide
stretches of barren and salt-laden wastes. The
surface of Balkash is 514 feet, that of the Aral
158 feet above the Mediterranean, that of the
Caspian eighty-five feet below it. The Black Sea
is in free communication with the Mediterranean
by the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles ; but the
others, in historical times, have been, at most,
temporarily connected with it and with one
another, by relatively insignificant channels. This
state of things, however, is comparatively modern.
At no very distant period, the land of Asia Minor
was continuous with that of Europe, across the
present site of the Bosphorus, forming a barrier
several hundred feet high, which dammed up the
waters of the Black Sea. A vast extent of eastern
Europe and of western central Asia thus became a
huge reservoir, the lowest part of the lip of which
was probably situated somewhat more than 200 feet
above the sea level, along the present southern
watershed of the Obi, which flows into the Arctic
Ocean. Into this basin, the largest rivers of
Europe, such as the Danube and the Volga, and
what were then great rivers of Asia, the Oxus and
Jaxartes, with all the intermediate affluents,
poured their waters. In addition, it received the
overflow of Lake Balkash, then much larger; and,
probably, that of the inland sea of Mongolia. At
that time, the level of the Sea of Aral stood at

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 301

least 60 feet higher than it does at present."1 In-
stead of the separate Black, Caspian, and Aral
seas, there was one vast Ponto-Aralian Mediter-
ranean, which must have been prolonged into arms
and fiords along the lower valleys of the Danube,
the Volga (in the course of which Caspian shells
are now found as far as the Kuma), the Ural, and
the other affluent rivers — while it seems to have
sent its overflow, northward, through the present
basin of the Obi. At the same time, there is
reason to believe that the northern coast of Asia,
which everywhere shows signs of recent slow up-
heaval, was situated far to the south of its present
position. The consequences of this state of things
have an extremely important bearing on the
question under discussion. In the first place, an
insular climate must be substituted for the present
extremely continental climate of west central
Eurasia. That is an important fact in many ways.
For example, the present eastern climatal limita-
tions of the beech could not have existed, and if
primitive Aryan goes back thus far, the argu-
ments based upon the occurrence of its name
in some Aryan languages and not in others lose
their force. In the second place, the European
and the Asiatic moieties of the great Eurasiatic

1 This is proved "by the old shore-marks on the hill of Kash-
kanatao in the midst of the delta of the Oxus. Some authorities
put the ancient level very much higher — 200 feet or more (Keane,
Asia, p. 408).

302 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI

plains were cut off from one another by the
Ponto-Aralian Mediterranean and its prolonga-
tions. In the third place, direct access to Asia
Minor, to the Caucasus, to the Persian highlands,
and to Afghanistan, from the European moiety
was completely barred ; while the tribes of eastern
central Asia were equally shut out from Persia
and from India by huge mountain ranges and
table lands. Thus, if the blond long-head race
existed so far back as the epoch in which the
Ponto-Aralian Mediterranean had its full exten-
sion, space for its development, under the most
favourable conditions, and free from any serious
intrusion of foreign elements from Asia, was pre-
sented in northern and eastern Europe.

When the slow erosion of the passage of the
Dardanelles drained the Ponto-Aralian waters into
the Mediterranean, they must have everywhere
fallen as near the level of the latter as the make
of the country permitted, remaining, at first, con-
nected by such straits as that of which the traces
yet persist between the Black and the Caspian,
the Caspian and the Aral Seas respectively. Then,
the gradual elevation of the land of northern
Siberia, bringing in its train a continental climate,
with its dry air and intense summer heats, the
loss by evaporation soon exceeded the greatly
reduced supply of water, and Balkash, Aral, and
Caspian gradually shrank to their present dimen-
sions. In the course of this process, the broad

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 803

plains between the separated inland seas, as soon
as they were laid bare, threw open easy routes to
the Caucasus and to Turkestan, which might well
be utilised by the blond long-heads moving east-
ward through the plains, contemporaneously left
dry, south and east of the Ural chain. The same
process of desiccation, however, would render the
route from east central Asia westward as easily
practicable ; and, in the end, the Aryan stock
might easily be cut in two, as we now find it to
be, by the movement of the Mongoloid brunet
broad-heads to the west.

Thus we arrive at what is practically Latham's
Sarmatian hypothesis — if the term " Sarmatian "
is stretched a little, so as to include the higher
parts and a good deal of the northern slopes of
Europe between the Ural and the German Ocean ;
an immense area of country, at least as large as
that now included between the Black Sea, the
Atlantic, the Baltic, and the Mediterranean.

If we imagine the blond long- head race to have
been spread over this area, while the primitive
Aryan language was in course of formation, its
north-western and its south-eastern tribes will
have been 1,500, or more, miles apart Thus, there
will have been ample scope for linguistic differ-
entiation ; and, as adjacent tribes were probably
influenced by the same causes, it is reasonable to
suppose that, at any given region of the periphery
the process of differentiation, whether brought

304 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI

about by internal or external agencies, will have
been analogous. Hence, it is permissible to
imagine that, even before primitive Aryan had
attained its full development, the course of that
development had become somewhat different in
different localities ; and, in this sense, it may be
quite true that one uniform primitive Aryan
language never existed. The nascent mode of
speech may very early have got a twist, so to
speak, towards Lithuanian, Slavonian, Teutonic,
or Celtic, in the north and west ; towards Thracian
and Greek, in the south-west ; towards Armenian
in the south ; towards Indo-Iranian in the south-
east. With the centrifugal movements -of the
several fractions of the race, these tendencies of
peripheral groups would naturally become more
and more intensified in proportion to their
isolation. No doubt, in the centre and in other
parts of the periphery of the Aryan region, other
dialectic groups made their appearance ; but what*
ever development they may have attained, these
have failed to maintain themselves in the battle
with the Finno-tataric tribes, or with the stronger
among their own kith and kin.1

Thus I think that the most plausible hypo-
thetical answers which can be given to the two
questions which we put at starting are these.

1 See the views of J. Schmidt (stated and discussed in Schrader
and Jevons, pp. 63-67), with which those here set forth are
substantially identical.

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 305

There was and is an Aryan race — that is to say,
the characteristic modes of speech, termed Aryan,
were developed among the blond long-heads alone
however much some of them may have been
modified by the importation of non-Aryan
elements. As to the " home " of the Aryan race,
it was in Europe, and lay chiefly east of the
central highlands and west of the Ural. From
this region it spread west, along the coasts of the
North Sea to our islands, where, probably, it met
the brunet long-heads ; to France, where it found
both these and the brunet short-heads ; to
Switzerland and South Germany, where it im-
pinged on the brunet short-heads ; to Italy,
where brunet short-heads seem to have abounded
in the north and long-heads in the south ; and to
the Balkan peninsula, about the earliest inhabit-
ants of which we know next to nothing. There
are two ways to Asia Minor, the one over the
Bosphorus and the other through the passes of the
Caucasus, and the Aryans may well have utilised
both. Finally, the south-eastern tribes probably
spread themselves gradually over west Turkestan,
and, after evolving the primitive Indo-Iranian
dialect, eventually colonised Persia and Hindostan,
where their speech developed into its final forms.
On this hypothesis, the notion that the Celts and
the Teutons migrated from about Pamir and the
Hindoo-Koosh is as far from the truth as the sup-
position that the Indo-Iranians migrated from

184

30C THE ARYAN QUESTION vi

Scandinavia. It supposes that the blond long-
heads, in what may be called their nascent Aryan
stage, that is before their dialects had taken on
the full Aryan characteristics, were spread over a
wide region which is, conventionally, European ;
but which, from the point of view of the physical
geographer, is rather to be regarded as a continu-
ation of Asia. Moreover, it is quite possible and
even probable, that the blond long-heads may
have arrived in Turkestan before their language
had reached, or at any rate passed beyond, the
stage of primitive Aryan ; and that the whole
process of differentiation into Indo-Iranian took
place during the long ages of their residence in
the basin of the Oxus. Thus, the question
whether the seat of the primitive Aryans was in
Europe, or in Asia, becomes very much a debate
about geographical terminology.

The foregoing arguments in favour of Latham's
" Sarmatian hypothesis " have been based upon
data which lie within the ken of history or may
be surely concluded by reasoning backwards from
the present state of things. But, thanks to the
investigations of the pre-historic archaeologists and
anthropologists during the last half-century, a vast
mass of positive evidence respecting the distribution
and the condition of mankind in the long interval
between the dawn of history and the commencement
of the recent epoch has been brought to light.

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 307

During this period, there is evidence that men
existed in all those regions of Europe which have
yet been properly examined; and such of their
bony remains as have been discovered exhibit no
less diversity of stature and cranial conformation
than at present. There are tall and short men ;
long-skulled and broad-skulled men ; and it is
probably safe to conclude that the present contrast
of blonds and brunets existed among them when
they were in the flesh. Moreover it has become
clear that, everywhere, the oldest of these people
were in the so-called neolithic stage of civilisation.
That is to say, they not merely used stone imple-
ments which were chipped into shape, but they
also employed tools and weapons brought to an
edge by grinding. At first they know little or
nothing of the use of metals ; they possess
domestic animals and cultivated plants and live
in houses of simple construction.

In some parts of Europe little advance seems
to have been made, even down to historical times.
But in Britain, France, Scandinavia, Germany,
Western Russia, Switzerland, Austria, the plain
of the Po, very probably also in the Balkan penin-
sula, culture gradually advanced until a relatively
high degree of civilisation was attained. The
initial impulse in this course of progress appears
to have been given by the discovery that metal
is a better material for tools and weapons than
stone. In the early days of pre-historic archae-

308 THE AKYAN QUESTION vi

ology, Nilsson showed that, in the interments of
the middle age, bronze largely took the place of
stone, and that, only in the latest, was iron sub-
stituted for bronze. Thus arose the generalisation
of the occurrence of a regular succession of stages
of culture, which were somewhat unfortunately
denominated the " ages " of stone, bronze, and
iron. For a long time after this order of succession
in the same locality (which, it was sometimes
forgotten, has nothing to do with chronological
contemporaneity in different localities) was made
out, the change from stone to bronze was ascribed
to foreign, and, of course, Eastern influences.
There were the ubiquitous Phoenician traders and
the immigrant Aryans from the Hindoo -Koosh,
ready to hand. But further investigation has
proved l for various parts of Europe and made it
probable for others, that though the old order of
succession is correct it is incomplete, and that a
copper stage must be interpolated between the
neolithic and the bronze stages. Bronze is an
artificial product, the formation of which implies
a knowledge of copper ; and it is certain that
copper was, at a very early period, smelted out of
the native ores, by the people of central Europe
who used it. When thev learned that the hard-

i « Proved " is perhaps too strong a word. But the evidence
set forth by Dr. Much (Die Kupferzeit in Europa, 1886) in
favour of a copper stage of culture among the inhabitants of the
pile-dwellings is Very weighty.

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 309

ness and toughness of their metal were immensely
improved by alloying it with a small quantity of
tin, they forsook copper for bronze, and gradually
attained a wonderful skill in bronze -work. Finally,
some of the European people became acquainted
with iron, and its superior qualities drove out
bronze, as bronze had driven out stone, from use
in the manufacture of implements and weapons of
the best class. But the process of substitution of
copper and bronze for stone was gradual, and, for
common purposes, stone remained in use long
after the introduction of metals.

The pile-dwellings of Switzerland have yielded
an unbroken archaeological record of these changes.
Those of eastern Switzerland ceased, to exist soon
after the appearance of metals, but in those of the
Lakes of Neuchatel and Bienne the history is
continued through the stage of bronze to the
beginning of that of iron. And in all this long
series of remains, which lay bare the minutest
details of the life of the pile-dwellers, from the
neolithic to the perfected bronze stage, there is
no indication of any disturbance such as must
have been caused by foreign invasion ; and such
as was produced by intruders, shortly after the iron
stage was reached. Undoubtedly the constructors
of the pile-dwellings must have received foreign
influences through the channel of trade, and may
have received them by the slow immigration of
other races. Their amber, their jade, and their

310 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi

tin show that they had commercial intercourse
with somewhat distant regions. The amber,
however, takes us no further than the Baltic ; and
it is now known that jade is to be had within the
boundaries of Europe, while tin lay no further off
than north Italy. An argument in favour of
oriental influence has been based upon the
characters of certain of the cultivated plants and
domesticated animals. But even that argument
does not necessarily take us beyond the limits of
south-eastern Europe ; and it needs reconsidera-
tion in view of the changes of physical geography
and of climate to which I have drawn attention.

In connection with this question there is another
important series of facts to be taken into con-
sideration. When, in the seventeenth century,
the Russians advanced beyond the Ural and began
to occupy Siberia, they found that the majority of
the natives used implements of stone and bone..
Only a few possessed tools or weapons of iron,
which had reached them by way of commerce ;
the Ostiaks and the Tartars of Tom, alone, ex-
tracted their iron from the ore. It was not until
the invaders reached the Lena, in the far east,
that they met with skilful smiths among the
Jakuts,1 who manufactured knives, axes, lances,
battle-axes, and leather jerkins studded with iron ;

1 Andree, Die Metalle bei den Naturvolkcrn (p. 114). It is
interesting to note that the Jakuts have always been yiastoral
nomads, formerly shepherds, now horse-breeders, and that they

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 311

and among the Tunguses and Lamuts, who had
learned from the Jakuts.

But there is an older chapter of Siberian
history which was closed in the seventeenth
century, as that of the people of the pile-dwellings
of Switzerland had ended when the Romans
entered Helvetia. Multitudes of sepulchral
tumuli, termed like those of European Russia,
"kurgans," are scattered over the north Asiatic
plains, and are especially agglomerated about the
upper waters of the Jenisei. Some are modern,
while others, extremely ancient, are attributed to
a quasi-mythical people, the Tschudes. These
Tschudish kurgans abound in copper and gold
articles of use and luxury, but contain neither
bronze nor iron. The Tschudes procured their
copper and their gold from the metalliferous rocks of
the Ural and the Altai ; and their old shafts, adits,
and rubbish heaps led the Russians to the re-
discovery of the forgotten stores of wealth. The
race to which the Tschudes belonged and the age
of the works which testify to their former exist-
ence, are alike unknown. But seeing that a
rumour of them appears to have reached
Herodotus, while, on the other hand, the pile-
dwelling civilisation of Switzerland may perhaps
come down as late as the fifth century B.C., the

continue to work their iron in the primitive fashion ; as tho
argument that metallurgic skill implies settled agricultural life
not unfrequently makes its appearance.

312 THE AEYAN QUESTION VI

possibility that a knowledge of the technical value
of copper may have travelled from Siberia west-
ward must not be overlooked. If the idea of
turning metals to account must needs be Asiatic,
it may be north Asiatic just as well as south
Asiatic. In the total absence of trustworthy
chronological and anthropological data, speculation
may run wild.

The oldest civilisations for which we have an,
even approximately, accurate chronology are those
of the valleys of the Nile and of the Euphrates.
Here, culture seems to have attained a degree of
perfection, at least as high as that of the bronze
stage, six thousand years ago. But before the
intermediation of Etruscan, Phoenician, and Greek
traders, there is no evidence that they exerted
any serious influence upon Europe or northern
Asia. As to the old civilisation of Mesopotamia,
what is to be said until something definite is
known about the racial characters of its origin-
ators, the Accadians ? As matters stand, they are
just as likely to have been a group of the same
race as the Egyptians, or the Dravidians, as any-
thing else. And considering that their culture
developed in the extreme south of the Euphrates
valley, it is difficult to imagine that its influence
could have spread to northern Eurasia except by
the Phoenician (and Carian ?) intermediation which
was undoubtedly operative in comparatively late
times.

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 313

Are we then to bring down the discovery of
the use of copper in Switzerland to, at earliest,
1500 B.C., and to put it down to Phoenician hints ?
But why copper ? At that time the Phoenicians
must have been familiar with the use of bronze.
And if, on the other hand, the northern Eurasiatics
had got as far as copper, by the help of their own
ingenuity, why deny them the capacity to make
the further step to bronze? Carry back the
borrowing system as far as we may, in the end
we must needs come to some man or men from
whom the novel idea started, and who after many
trials and errors gave it practical shape. And
there really is no ground in the nature of things
for supposing that such men of practical genius
may not have turned up, independently, in more
races than one.

The capacity of the population of Europe for
independent progress while in the copper and
early bronze stage — the " palaeo-metallic " stage, as
it might be called — appears to me to be demon-
strated in a remarkable manner by the remains
of their architecture. From the crannog to the
elaborate pile-dwelling, and from the rudest
enclosure to the complex fortification of the
t err am are, there is an advance which is obviously
a native product. So with the sepulchral con-
structions ; the stone cist, with or without a pre-
servative or memorial cairn, grows into the
chambered graves lodged in tumuli; into such

314 THE ARYAN QUESTION VJ

megalithic edifices as the dromic vaults of Maes
How and New Grange ; to culminate in the
finished masonry of the tombs of Mycenae, con-
structed on exactly the same plan. Can any one
look at the varied series of forms which lie
between the primitive five or six flat stones fitted
together into a mere box, and such a building as
Maes How, and yet imagine that the latter is the
result of foreign tuition ? But the men who built
Maes How, without metal tools, could certainly
have built the so-called "treasure-house" of
Mycense, with them.

If these old men of the sea, the heights of
Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir and the plain of Shinar, had
been less firmly seated upon the shoulders of
anthropologists, I think they would long since
have seen that it is at least possible that the
early civilisation of Europe is of indigenous
growth ; and that, so far as the evidence at
present accumulated goes, the neolithic culture
may have attained its full development, copper
may have gradually come into use, and bronze
may have succeeded copper, without foreign
intervention.

So far as I am aware, every raw material em-
ployed in Europe up to the palaeo-metallic stage,
is to be found within the limits of Europe ; and
there is no proof that the old races of domesticated
animals and plants could not have been developed
within these limits. If any one chose to mam-

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 315

tain, that the use of bronze in Europe originated
among the inhabitants of Etruria and radiated
thence, along the already established lines of
traffic to all parts of Europe, I do not see that his
contention could be upset. It would be hard to
prove either that the primitive Etruscans could
not have discovered the way to manufacture
bronze, or that they did not discover it and become
a great mercantile people in consequence, before
Phoenician commerce had reached the remote
shores of the Tyrrhene Sea.

Can it be safely concluded that the palaeo-
metallic culture which we have been considering
was the appanage of any one of the western
Eurasiatic races rather than another? Did it
arise and develop among the brunet or the blond
long-heads, or among the brunet short-heads ? I
do not think there are any means of answering
these questions, positively, at present. Schrader
has pointed out that the state of culture of the
primitive Aryans, deduced from philological data,
closely corresponds with that which obtained
among the pile-dwellers in the neolithic stage.
But the resemblance of the early stages of civil-
isation among the most different and widely
separated races of mankind, should warn us that
archaeology is no more a sure guide in questions
of race than philology.

With respect to the osteological characters of

316 THE ARYAN QUESTION vi

the people of the Swiss pile-dwellings information
is as yet scanty. So far as the present evidence
goes, they appear to have comprised both broad-
heads and long-heads of moderate stature. x In
France, England, and Germany, both long and
broad skulls are found in tumuli belonging to the
neolithic stage. In some parts of England the
long skulls, and in others the broad skulls, accom-
pany the higher stature. In the Scandinavian
peninsula, nine-tenths of the neolithic people are
decided long-heads : in Denmark, there is a much
larger proportion of broad -heads.

In view of all the facts known to me (which
cannot be stated in greater detail in this place), I
.am disposed to think that the blond long-heads,
the brunet long-heads, and the brunet broad-
heads have existed on the continent of Europe
throughout the Recent period : that only the for-
mer two at first inhabited our islands ; but that a
mixed race of tall broad-heads, like some of the
Blackforesters of the present day, so excellently
described by Ecker, migrated from the continent
and formed that tall contingent of the population

1 Professor Virchow has guardedly expressed the opinion that
the oldest inhabitants of the Swiss pile-dwellings were broad -
heads, and that later on (commencing before the bronze stage)
there was a gradual infusion of long-heads among them.
(Zcitsdirift fur JEthnolugie. xvii., 1885). There is independent
evidence of the existence of broad-heads in the Cevennes during
the neolithic period, and I should be disposed to think that this
opinion may well be correct ; but the examination of the evidence
on which it is, at present, based does not lead me to feel very
confident about it.

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 817

which has been identified (rightly or wrongly)
with the Belgoe by Thurnam and which seems to
have subsequently lost itself among the predomi-
nant brunet and blond long-heads.

I do not think there is anything to warrant the
conclusion that the palseo-metallic culture of
Europe took its origin among the blond long-head
(or supposed Aryan) race ; or that the people of
the Swiss pile-dwellings belonged to that race.
The long-heads among them may just as likely
have been brunets. In north-eastern Italy there
is clear evidence of the superposition of at least
four stages of culture, in which that of the copper
and bronze using terramare people comes second ;
a stage marked by Etruscan domination occupies
the third place ; and that is followed by the stage
which appertains to the Gauls, with their long
swords and other characteristic iron work. In west-
ern Switzerland, on the other hand, at La Tene, and
elsewhere, similar relics show that the Gauls fol-
lowed upon the latest population of the pile-
dwellings among whom traces of Etruscan influ-
ence (though not of dominion) are to be found.
Helbig supposes the terramare people to have been
Greco-Latin-speaking Pelasgi, and consequently
Aryan. But we cannot suppose the people of the
pile-dwellings of Switzerland to have been
speakers of primitive Greco-Latin (if ever there
was such a language). And if the Gauls were the
first speakers of Celtic who got into Switzerland,

318 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI

what Aryan language can the people of the pile-
dwellings have spoken ? l

As I have already mentioned, there is not the
least doubt that man existed in north-western
Europe during the Pleistocene or Quaternary
epoch. It is not only certain that men were con-
temporaries of the mammoth, the hairy rhinoceros,
the reindeer, the cave bear, and other great
carnivora, in England and in France, but a great
deal has been ascertained about the modes of life
of our predecessors. They were savage hunters,
who took advantage of such natural shelters as
overhanging rocks and caves, and perhaps built
themselves rough wigwams ; but who had no
domestic animals and have left no sign that they
cultivated plants. In many localities there is
evidence that a very considerable interval — the
so-called hiatus — intervened between the time
when the Quaternary or palaeolithic men occupied
particular caves and river basins and the accumu-
lation of the debris left by their neolithic succes-
sors. And, in spite of all the warnings against
negative evidence afforded by the history of
geology, some have very positively asserted that
this means a complete break between the Quater-

1 See Dr. Munro's excellent work, The Lake Dwellings of
Europe, for La Tene. Readers of Professor Rhys' recent articles
(Scottish Review, 1890) may suggest that the pile- dwelling
peop^ spoke the Gaedhelic foriu of Celtic, and the Gauls the
Hry thonic form.

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 319

nary and the Recent populations — that the
Quaternary population followed the retreating ice
northwards and left behind them a desert which
remained unpeopled for ages. Other high authori-
ties, on the contrary, have maintained that the races
of men who now inhabit Europe may all be traced
back to the Great Ice Age. When a conflict of
opinion of this kind obtains among reasonable and
instructed men, it is generally a safe conclusion
that the evidence for neither view is worth much.
Certainly that is the result of my own cogitations
with regard to both the hiatus doctrine (in its
extreme form) and its opposite — though I think
the latter by much the more likely to turn out
right. But I hesitate to adopt it on the evidence
which has been obtained up to this time.

No doubt, human bones and skulls of various
types have been discovered in close proximity to
palaeolithic implements and to skeletons of qua-
ternary quadrupeds ; no doubt, if the bones and
skulls in question were not human, their con-
temporaneity would hardly have been questioned.
But, since they are human, the demand for further
evidence really need not be ascribed to mere con-
servative prejudice. Because the human biped
differs from all other bipeds and quadrupeds, in
the tendency to put his dead out of sight in vari-
ous ways ; commonly by burial. It is a habit
worthy of all respect in itself, but generative of
subtle traps and grievous pitfalls for the unwary

820 THE ARYAN QUESTION VT

investigator of human palaeontology. For it may
easily happen, that the bones of him that " died o'
Wednesday," may thus come to lie alongside the
bones of animals that were extinct thousands of
years before that Wednesday ; and yet the inter-
ment may have been effected so many thousands
of years ago that no outward sign betrays the
difference in date. In all investigations of this
kind, the most careful and critical study of the
circumstances is needful if the results are to be
accepted as perfectly trustworthy.

In the case of the remains found in a cave of
the valley of the Neander, near Diisseldorf, half a
century ago — the characters of which gave rise to
a vast amount of discussion at that time and subse-
quently— the circumstances of the discovery were
but vaguely known. The skeleton was met with
in a deposit, the loess, which is known to be of
quaternary age ; there was no evidence to show
how it came there. Consequently, not only was
its exact age justly and properly declared to be a
matter of doubt; but those who, on scientific or
other grounds, were inclined to minimise its
importance could put forth plausible speculations
about its nature which do not look so well under
the light thrown by a more advanced science of
Anthropology. It could be and it was suggested
that the Neanderthal skeleton was that of a
strayed idiot ; that the characters of the skull were
the result of early synostosis or of late gout ; and,

VI

THE ARYAN QUESTION 321

in fact, any stick was good enough to beat the dog
withal.

As some writings of mine on the subject led to
my occupation of a prominent position among the
belaboured dogs of that day, I have taken a mild
interest in watching the gradual rehabilitation of
my old friend of the Neanderthal among normal
men, which has been going on of late years. It
has come to be generally admitted that his re-
markable cranium is no more than a strongly-
marked example of a type which occurs, not only
among other prehistoric men, but is met with,
sporadically, among the moderns ; and that, after
all, I was not so wrong as I ought to have been,
when I indicated such points of similarity among
the skulls found in our river-beds and among the
native races of Australia.1 However, doubts still
clung about the geological age of the various
deposits in which skulls of the Neanderthal type
were subsequently found ; and it was not until the
year 1886 that two highty-competent observers,
Messrs. Fraipont and Lohest, the one an anatomist,
the other a geologist, furnished us with evidence
such as will bear severe criticism. At the mouth
of a cave in the commune of Spy, in the Belgian
province of Namur, Messrs. Fraipont and Lohest
discovered two skeletons of the Neanderthal type ;
and the elaborate account of their investigations
which they have published appears to me to leave

1 See p. 202 of this volume.
185

322 THE AKYAN QUESTION vi

little room for doubt that the men of Spy fabri-
cated the palaeolithic implements, and were the
contemporaries of the characteristic quaternary
quadrupeds, found with them. The anatomical
characters of the skeletons bear out conclusions
which are not flattering to the appearance of the
owners. They were short of stature but power-
fully built, with strong, curiously-curved, thigh-
bones, the lower ends of which are so fashioned
that they must have walked with a bend at the
knees. Their long depressed skulls had very
strong brow ridges ; their lower jaws, of brutal
depth and solidity, sloped away from the teeth
downwards and backwards, in consequence of the
absence of that especially characteristic feature of
the higher type of man, the chin prominence.
Thus these skulls are not only eminently " Nean-
derthaloid," but they supply the proof that the
parts wanting in the original specimen harmonised
in lowness of type with the rest.

After a very full discussion of the anatomical
characters of these skulls, M. Fraipont says :

To sum up, we consider ourselves to be in a position to say
that, having regard merely to the anatomical structure of the
man of Spy, he possessed a greater number of pithecoid charac-
ters than any other race of mankind.1

And after enumerating these he continues :
The other and much more numerous characters of the skull, of

1 Fraipont et Lohest. ."La Race humainede Neanderthal, on
de Canstatt, en Belgique," Archives de Biologic, 1886.

Vi THE ARYAN QUESTION 323

the trunk, and of the limbs seem to be all human. Between
the man of Spy and an existing anthropoid ape there lies an
abyss.

Now that is pleasant reading for me, because,
in 1863, I committed myself to the assertion that
the Neanderthal skull was " the most pithecoid of
human crania yet discovered," yet that " in no sense
can the Neanderthal bones be regarded as the
remains of a human being intermediate between
men and apes " l and " that the fossil remains of
Man hitherto discovered do not seem to me to take
us appreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid form,
by the modification of which he has, probably,
become what he is." 2

As the evidence stood seven and twenty years
ago, in fact, it would have been imprudent to as-
sume that the Neanderthal skull was anything but
a case of sporadic reversion. But, in my anxiety
not to overstate my case, I understated it. The
Neanderthaloid race is "appreciably nearer,"
though the approximation is but slight. In the
words of M. Fraipont :

The distance which separates the man of Spy from the
modem anthropoid ape is undoubtedly enormous ; between the
man of Spy and the Dryopithecus it is a little less. But we
must be permitted to point out that if the man of the later
quaternary age is the stock whence existing races have sprung>
he has travelled a very great way.

From the data now obtained, it is permissible to believe that

1 See p. 205 supra. * Ibid, p. 208.

324 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI

we shall be able to pursue the ancestral type of men and the
anthropoid apes still further, perhaps as far as the eocene and
even beyond.1

These conclusions hold good whatever the age
of the men of Spy ; but they possess a peculiar
interest if we admit, as I think on the evidence
must be admitted, that these human fossils are of
pleistocene age. For, after all due limitations,
they give us some, however dim, insight into the
rate of evolution of the human species, and indi-
cate that it has not taken place at a much faster
or slower pace than that of other mammalia. And
if that is so, we are warranted in the supposition
that the genus Homo, if not the species which the
courtesy or the irony of naturalists has dubbed
sapiens, was represented in pliocene, or even in
miocene times. But I do not know by what
osteological peculiarities it could be determined
whether the pliocene, or miocene, man was suffi-
ciently sapient to speak or not ; 2 and whether, or
not, he answered to the definition " rational ani-
mal " in any higher sense than a dog or an ape does.
There is no reason to suppose that the genus

1 "Where, then, must we look for primaeval Man ? Was the
oldest Homo sapiens* pliocene or miocene, or yet more ancient ?
In still older strata do the fossilised bones of an Ape more
anthropoid or a Man more pithecoid than any yet known await
the researches of some unborn palaeontologist I " — P. 208 supra.

2 I am perplexed by the importance attached by some to the .
presence or absence of the so-called "genial " elevations. Does
any one suppose that the existence of the genio-hyo-glossus
muscle, which plays so large a part in the movements of the
tongue, depends on that of these elevations '*

VI THE ARYAN QUESTION 325

Homo was confined to Europe in the pleistocene
age; it is much more probable that this, like
other mammalian genera of that period, was
spread over a large extent of the surface of the
globe. At that time, in fact, the climate of
regions nearer the equator must have been far
more favourable to the human species ; and it is
possible that-, under such conditions, it may have
attained a higher development than in the north.
As to where the genus Homo originated, it is
impossible to form even a probable guess. During
the miocene epoch, one region of the present
temperate zones would serve as well as another.
The elder Agassiz long ago tried to prove that the
well-marked areas of geographical distribution of
mammals have their special kinds of men ; and,
though this doctrine cannot be made good to the
extent which Agassiz maintained ; yet the limita-
tion of the Australian type to New Holland,1 the
approximate restriction of the negro type to Ultra-
Saharal Africa, and the peculiar character of the
population of Central and South America, are facts
which bear strongly in favour of the conclusion
that the causes which have influenced the distri-
bution of mammals in general, have powerfully
affected that of man.

Let it be supposed that the human remains
from the caves of the Neanderthal and of Spy

P Unless I am right in extending it to Hindostan anj
even further west. — 1894.]

326 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI

represent the race, or one of the races, of men who
inhabited Europe in the quaternary epoch, can
any connection be traced between it and existing
races ? That is to say, do any of them exhibit
characters approximating those of the Spy men
or other examples of the Neanderthaloid race ?
Put in the latter form, I think that the question
may be safely answered in the affirmative. Skulls
do occasionally approach the Neanderthaloid type,
among both the brunet and the blond long-head
races. For the former, I pointed out the resem-
blance, long ago, in some of the Irish river-bed
skulls. For the latter, evidence of various kinds
may be adduced ; but I prefer to cite the autho-
rity of one of the most accomplished and cautious
of living anthropologists. Professor Virchow was
led, by historical considerations, to think that the
Teutonic type, if it still remained pure and un-
defiled anywhere, should be discoverable among
the Frisians, in their ancient island homes on the
North German coast, remote from the great move-
ments of nations. In their tall stature and blond
complexion the Frisians fulfilled expectation ; but
their skulls differed in some respects from those
of the neighbouring blond long-heads. The de-
pression, or flattening (accompanied by a slight
increase in breadth), which occurs occasionally
among the latter, is regular and characteristic
among the Frisians ; and, in other respects, the
Frisian skull unmistakably approaches the Nean-

vi THE ARYAN QUESTION 327

derthal and Spy type.1 The fact that this re-
semblance exists is of none the less importance
because the proper interpretation of it is not yet
clear. It may be taken to be a pretty sure
indication of the physiological continuity of the
blond long-heads with the pleistocene Neander-
thaloid men. But this continuity may have been
brought about in two ways. The blond long-
heads may exhibit one of the lines of evolution of
the men of the Neanderthaloid type. Or, the
Frisians may be the result of the admixture of
the blond long-heads with Neanderthaloid men ;
whose remains have been found at Canstatt and
at Gibraltar, as well as at Spy and in the valley
of the Neander ; and who, therefore, seem, at one
time, to have occupied a considerable area in
Western Europe. The same alternatives present
themselves when Neanderthaloid characters appear
in skulls of other races. If these characters belong
to a stage in the development of the human
species, antecedent to the differentiation of any of
the existing races, we may expect to find them in
the lowest of these races, all over the world, and
in the early stages of all races. I have already
referred to the remarkable similarity of the skulls
of certain tribes of native Australians to the

1 Virchow Beitrdge zur pTiysischen Anthropologie der DeutscJien
(Alh. der Koniglichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin,
1876). See particularly p. 238 for the full recognition of the
Neanderthaloid characters of Frisian skulls and of the ethno-
logical significance of the similarity.

828 THE ARYAN QUESTION VI

Neanderthal skull ; and I may add, that the wide
differences in height between the skulls of
different tribes of Australians afford a parallel to
the differences in altitude between the skulls of
the men of Spy and those of the grave rows of
North Germany. Neanderthaloid features are to
be met with, not only in ancient long skulls ;
those of the ancient broad-headed people entombed
at Borreby in Denmark have been often noted.

Reckoned by centuries, the remoteness of the
quaternary, or pleistocene, age from our own is
immense, and it is difficult to form an adequate
notion of its duration. Undoubtedly there is an
abysmal difference between the Neanderthaloid race
and the comely living specimens of the blond long-
heads with whom we are familiar. But the abyss
of time between the period at which North Europe
was first covered with ice, when savages pursued
mammoths and scratched their portraits with
sharp stones in central France, and the present
day, ever widens as we learn more about the
events which bridge it. And, if the differences
between the Neanderthaloid men and ourselves
could be divided into as many parts as that time
contains centuries, the progress from part to part
would probably be almost imperceptible.

END OF VOL. VII

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