:iic;- 
 
 m 
 
 KI^^^^^H 
 
 
 

 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Mrs. }lyrtle TuHy
 
 MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 ANTHROPOLOGICAL ESSAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS H. HUXLEY 
 
 Specially Published 
 
 for 
 
 THE BRUNSWICK SUBSCRIPTION CO. 
 
 by 
 
 D. APPLETON & COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1915
 
 Authorized Edition,
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 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 
 premises of the argument set forth in "Man's 
 Place in Nature " and most of the conclusions de- 
 duced 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 Rela- 
 tions of Man to the Lower Animals," aside, as a 
 fair mathematician might dispense with the re- 
 perusal of Cocker^s arithmetic, that I think it 

 
 Vi PREFACE. 
 
 worth while to reprint them; and entertain the 
 hope that the story of their origin and early fate 
 may not he devoid of a certain antiquarian inter- 
 est, even if it possess no other. 
 
 In 1854, it became my duty to teach the prin- 
 ciples of biological science with especial reference 
 to paleontology. The first result of addressing 
 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 knowl- 
 edge 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 came 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 knowledge 
 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. VU 
 
 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 teach- 
 ing 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 burning 
 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 univer- 
 sity 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 con- 
 sidered man from the point of view, not of vulgar 
 prejudice, but of science, opinions lay poles asun- 
 der. Linnaeus had taken one view, Cuvier another;
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 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 atten- 
 tion 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 teach- 
 ing. 
 
 Matters were at this point, when " The Origin 
 of Species " appeared. The weighty sentence 
 " Light will be thrown on the origin of man and
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 his history " (1st ed. p. 488) was not only in full 
 harmony with the conclusions at which I had ar- 
 rived, respecting the structural relatione of apes 
 and men, but was strongly supported by them. 
 And inasmuch as Development and Vertebrate 
 Anatomy were not among Mr. Darwin's many spe- 
 cialities, 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 culminated 
 at the Cambridge meeting of the Association in 
 1862, by my friend Sir W. Flower's public demon- 
 stration of the existence in the apes of those cere- 
 bral characters which had been said to be peculiar 
 to man. 
 
 " Magna est Veritas et praevalebit! " 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 con- 
 clusions " had not been formed hastily or enun- 
 ciated crudely." I thought I had earned the right 
 to publish them and even fancied I might be 
 thanked, rather than reproved, for so doing. How- 
 ever, in my anxiety to promulgate nothing errone- 
 ous, 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 criti- 
 cism on that score; but my satisfaction was speedily 
 dashed by the very earnest warning, as to the con- 
 sequences of publication, which my friend's inter- 
 est 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 soupgon — 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 hard- 
 est blasts of misrepresentation and ridicule for 
 some years; and I was even as one of the wicked. 
 Indeed, it surprises me, at times, to think how any
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 one who had sunk so low could since have emerged 
 into,, at any rate, relative respectability. Person- 
 ally, like the non-corvine personages in the In- 
 goldsby 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 Ernul- 
 phine advertisements to which I have referred. It 
 has had the honour of being freely utilized, without 
 acknowledgment, 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 sen- 
 sibly changed during the last thirty years. I 
 doubt not that there are truths as plainly obvious 
 and as generally denied, as those contained in 
 " Man's Place in Nature," now awaiting enuncia- 
 tion. If there is a young man of the present gen- 
 eration, 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. Ernulphus. 
 " Veritas pra;valebit " — 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 reward 
 is full payment for all his labour and pains. 
 
 " Man's Place in Nature," perhaps, may still be
 
 Xii PREFACE. 
 
 useful as an introduction to the subject; but, as any 
 interest which attaches to it must be mainly his- 
 torical, 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 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 supple- 
 ments required, are, I believe, either indiiierent to 
 the argument or would strengthen it.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAQB 
 Oy THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MAN-LIKE APE3 . . 1 
 
 II 
 
 ON" THE RELATIONS OF MAN TO THE LOWER ANIMALS . 77 
 
 III 
 ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN 157 
 
 TV 
 
 ON THE METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY [1865] . 210 
 
 V 
 ON SOME FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH ETHNOLOGY [1871]. 254 
 
 VI 
 ON THE ARYAN QUESTION [1890] 273 
 
 %* The first threo Essays were published in January, 186:}, 
 under the title of " Man's Place in Nature "; the fourth Essay 
 appeared in the Fortnightly Review, tlie fifth in the Con- 
 temporary Review, and they were published in Critiques and 
 Addresses. The Essay on the Aryan Question appeared in 
 the Nineteenth Century for November, 1890. 
 
 xiii
 
 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 dif- 
 ferent audiences during the past three years. 
 
 Upon the subject of the second Essay, I de- 
 livered six Lectures to the Working Men in 1860, 
 and two, to the members of the Philosophical In- 
 stitution 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. 
 
 XV
 
 I. 
 
 ON THE NATUKAL HISTORY OF THE 
 MAN-LIKE APES. 
 
 Ancient traditions, when tested by the severe 
 processes of modem investigation, commonly 
 enough fade away into mere dreams: but it is sin- 
 gular how often the dream turns out to have been 
 a half-waking one, presaging a reality. Ovid fore- 
 shadowed the discoveries of the geologist: the At- 
 lantis 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 con- 
 tained in Pigafetta's " Description of the king- 
 165 1
 
 2 
 
 THE MAN-LIKE APES. 
 
 dom of Congo," * drawn up from the notes of a 
 Portuguese sailor, Eduardo Lopez, and published 
 in 1598. The tenth chapter of this work is en- 
 titled " De Animalibus qua3 in hac provincia re- 
 
 FlG. 1. — Simiae magnatum delicise. — De Bry, 1598. 
 
 periuntur," 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 
 afford great delight to the nobles by imitating 
 
 • Regnum Congo: hoc est Vera Descriptio Regni 
 Africani quod tam ab incolis quam Lusitanis Con- 
 Gus appellatur, per Philippum Pigafettam, olim ex 
 Edoardo Lopez acroamatis lingua Italica excerpta, num 
 Latio sermone donata ab August. Cassiod. Reinio. Iconi- 
 bus et imaginibus rerum memorabilium quasi vivns, opera 
 et industria Joan. Theodori et Joan, Israelis de Bry, fra- 
 trum exornata. Francofurti, mdxcviii.
 
 X THE PONGO AND ENGECO. 3 
 
 human gestures." As this might apply to almost 
 any kind of apes, I should have thouglit 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 " Simiae 
 magnatum deliciae." 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 Chimpanzeee. It may be that these apes 
 are as much figments of the imagination of the in- 
 genious brothers as the winged, two-legged, croco- 
 dile-headed dragon which adorns the same plate; 
 or, on the other hand, it may be that the artists 
 have constructed their drawings from some essen- 
 tially faithful description of a Gorilla or a Chim- 
 panzee. And, in either case, though these fig- 
 ures are worth a passing notice, the oldest trust- 
 worthy 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 refer- 
 ences to the statements of one whom Purchas terms 
 " Andrew Battell (my neere neighbour, dwelling 
 at Leigh in Essex) who served under Manuel Sil- 
 vera Perera, Governor under the King of Spaine, 
 at his city of Saint Paul, and with him went farre 
 into the countrey of Angola "; and again, " my
 
 4 THE MAN-LIKE APES. X 
 
 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 be termed, 
 of the height of a man, but twice as bigge in fea- 
 ture of their limmes, with strength proportion- 
 able, hairie all over, otherwise altogether like men 
 and women in their whole bodily shape.* 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 cleai 
 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, 
 their hunting: Idolatries; and divers other obser- 
 vations." 
 
 * " Except this that their legges had no calves." — [Ed. 
 1626.] And in a marginal note, " These great apes are 
 called Pongo's."
 
 I THJi POMaO. 5 
 
 "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 overgrowne that a man may travaile twentie days in 
 the shadow without any sunne or heat. Here is no kind 
 of come nor graine, so that the people liveth onely upon 
 plantanes and roots of sundrie sorts, very good; and nutsj 
 nor any kinde of tame cattell, nor hens. 
 
 " But they have great store of elephants' flesh, which 
 they gi'eatly 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,* 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 the sunne hath his south declination, then 
 a boat may goe in; for then it is smooth because of the 
 raine. This river is very gieat, 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. His 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 no ealfe. Hee goeth alwaies upon his legs, and car- 
 
 * Purcfias' note. — Cape Negro is in 16 degrees south of 
 the line.
 
 6 THE MAN-LIKE APES. l 
 
 rieth his hands clasped in the nape of his necke when he 
 goeth upon the ground. They sleepe in the trees, and 
 build 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 under- 
 standing 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 
 negioes that travaile iu 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 \vith poisoned ar- 
 rowes. 
 
 " The young Pongo hangeth on his mother's belly -with 
 his hands fast clasped about her, so that when the coun- 
 trie people kill any of the females they take the young 
 one, which hangeth fpst upon his mother. 
 
 " When they die among themselves, they cover the 
 dead with great heaps of boughs and wood, which is com- 
 monly found in the forest." * 
 
 * Purchas' marginal note, p. 982: — "The Pongo is 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 forgotten to relate; 
 and these papers came to my hand since his death, which, 
 otherwise, in my often conferences, I might have learned. 
 Perhaps he meaneth the Pigmy Pongo killers mentioned."
 
 I THE PONGO. 7 
 
 It does not appear difficult to identify the exact 
 region of which. Battell speaks. Longo is doubt- 
 less 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 Motim- 
 bas 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 geog- 
 raphers, which form a great delta on this part of 
 the African coast. 
 
 Now this " Camma " 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 lo- 
 calities 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 na- 
 tives 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 " for- 
 got to relate," while the name " Pongo " — applied
 
 8 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 
 
 to the animals whose characters and habits are so 
 fully and carefully described — seems to have died 
 out, at least in its primitive form and signification. 
 Indeed, there is evidence that not only in Battell's 
 time, but up to a very recent date, it was used in 
 a totally different sense from that in which he em- 
 ploys it. 
 
 For example, the second chapter of Purchas' 
 work, which I have just quoted, contains " A De- 
 scription and Historicall Declaration of the Golden 
 Kingdom of Guinea, &c. &c. Translated from the 
 Dutch, and compared also with the Latin," where- 
 in it is stated (p. 986) that — 
 
 " The River Gaboon lyeth about fifteen miles north- 
 ward 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 ap- 
 pended to the late M. Isidore Geoff. Saint Hilaire's 
 excellent essay on the Gorilla,* note in similar 
 terms the width of the Gaboon, the trees that line 
 
 * Archives du Museum, Tome X.
 
 I THE PONGO. 9 
 
 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 low, 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 them- 
 selves) 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 his- 
 tory of the man-like Apes. 
 
 The generation which succeeded Battell saw
 
 10 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 
 
 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' 
 " Observationes Medicas," published in 1641, the 
 56th chapter or section is devoted to what he calls 
 Satyrus indicus, " called by the Indians Orang- 
 
 Somo S ylvefln's. ^^ 
 QremffOutang. Jj/Bd^. 
 
 Fig. 2.— The Orang of Tulpius, 1641. 
 
 autang or Man-of-the-Woods, and by the Africans 
 Quoias Morrou." He gives a very good figure, evi- 
 dently from the life, of the specimen of this ani- 
 mal, " nostra memoria ex Angola delatum," pre- 
 sented to Frederick Henry Prince of Orange. Tul- 
 pius says it was as big as a child of three years old,
 
 I TYSON'S PYGMIE. It 
 
 and as stout as one of six years: and that its back 
 was covered with black hair. It is plainly a young 
 Chimpanzee. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the existence of other, Asi- 
 atic, man-like Apes became known, but at first 
 in a very mythical fashion. Thus Bontius (1658) 
 gives an altogether fabulous and ridiculous ac- 
 count 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 coad- 
 jutor Cowper, that we owe the first account of a 
 man-like ape which has any pretensions to scien- 
 tific accuracy and completeness. The treatise en- 
 titled, " Orang-ovtavfj, sive Homo Sylvestris; or 
 the Anatomy of a Pygmie compared with that of a 
 Monkey, an Ape, and a Man," published by the 
 Royal Society in 1699, is, indeed, a work of re- 
 markable merit, and has, in some respects, served 
 as a model to subsequent inqiiirers. This " Pyg- 
 mie," 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
 
 12 
 
 THE MAN-LIKE APES. 
 
 on all four, 'twas 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 strength enough to support its body," — 
 
 Fig. 3. — The " Pvgmie " reduced from Tyson's figure 1, 
 
 1699. 
 
 " From the top of the head to the heel of the foot, 
 
 in a straight line, it measured twenty-six inchee." 
 
 These characters, even without Tyson's good 
 
 figure (Figs. 3 and 4), would have been sufficient
 
 TYSON'S PYGMIB. 
 
 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 
 
 Fig 4. — The " Pygmie " reduced from Tyson's figure 2, 
 
 1699. 
 
 bear independent testimony to its being a veri- 
 table Troglodytes niger* though still very young. 
 
 * I am indebted to Dr. Wright, of Cheltenham, whose 
 paleontological labours are so well known, for bringing
 
 14 THE MAN-LIKE APES. I 
 
 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 An- 
 cients, 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 — 'tis a 
 
 this interseting relic to my knowledge. Tyson's grand- 
 daughter, 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 pre- 
 sented it to the Cheltenham Museum, and, through the 
 good offices of my friend Dr. Wright, the authorities of 
 the Museum have permitted me to borrow, what is, per- 
 haps, its most remarkable ornament.
 
 1 THE MAKDRILL. 15 
 
 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 countiy Mandrill,* but why it 
 is so called I know not, nor did I ever hear the name be- 
 fore, neither can those who call them so tell, except it be 
 for their near resemblance of a human creature, thoush 
 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 
 
 * " 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 " Glossofjraphia, 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 Charleston's Onomasticon Zoicon, 1668. The sin- 
 gular etymology of the word given by Buffon seems hardly 
 a probable one.
 
 16 
 
 THE MAN-LIKE APES. 
 
 the eyebrows; the nose very small, the mouth wide, 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 " Man- 
 drill," 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 
 mirse it, being a very tender sort of animal ; but when- 
 ever I went off the deck the sailors began to teaze it —
 
 I LINN^US ANTHROPOMORPHA. 17 
 
 some loved to see its tears and hear it cry; others 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 re- 
 plied, ' 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 " Amoeni- 
 tates Academicae " (VI. " Anthropomorpha ") 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 re- 
 duced copy. The figures are entitled (from left to 
 right) 1. Troglodyta Bontii; 2. Lucifer Aldro- 
 vandi; 3. Satyrus Tulpii; 4. Pygmceus Edwardi. 
 The first is a bad copy of Bontius' fictitious " Ou- 
 rang-outang," in whose existence, however, Lin- 
 nasus appears to have fully believed; for in the 
 standard edition of the " Systema Naturae," it is 
 enumerated as a second species of Homo; " H. 
 nocturnus." Lucifer Aldrovandi is a copy of a 
 figure in Aldrovandus, " De Quadrupedibus digi- 
 tatis viviparis," Lib. 2, p. 249 (1645) entitled 
 166
 
 18 
 
 THE MAJi-l ilKKi APES. 
 
 " Cercopithecus formse rarae Barhilius vocatus et 
 originem a china ducebat." Hoppius 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 " Linnseus calls it in a note 
 Homo caudatus, and seems inclined to regard it 
 as a third species of man. According to Tem- 
 
 FiG. 6. — The Anthropomorpha of Linnaeus. 
 
 minck, Satyrus Tulpii is a copy of the figure of 
 a Chimpanzee published by Scotin in 1738, which 
 I have not seen. It is the Satyrus indicus of the 
 " Systema Naturge," and is regarded by Linnaeus 
 as possibly a distinct species from Satyrus sylvestris. 
 The last, named Pygviaius Edwardi, is copied from 
 the figure of a young " Man of the Woods," or true 
 Orang-Utan, given in Edwards' " Gleanings of 
 Natural History" (1758).
 
 X BUFFON'S JOCKO. 19 
 
 Buffon was more fortunate than his great rival. 
 Not only had he the rare opportunity of examin- 
 ing 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, Buf 
 fon gave an excellent description of this creature, 
 which, from its singular proportions, 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 IMandrill 
 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 '' His- 
 toire generale des Voyages " (1748), and there Buf- 
 fon found a version of Andrew Battell's account 
 of the Pongo and the Engeco. All these data Buf- 
 fon 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 orien- 
 tales: Pongo nom de cet animal k Lowando Province de 
 Congo. 
 
 " Jocko, Enjocko, nom de cet animal a Congo que nous 
 avons adopts. En est I'article que nous avons retranchS."
 
 30 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 con- 
 sequence of the extensive popularity of Buffon's 
 works. The Abbe Prevost and Buffon between 
 them however, did a good deal more disfigurement 
 to Battell's sober account than " cutting off an 
 article." Thus Battell's statement that the Pon- 
 gos " cannot speake, and have no understanding 
 more than a beast," is rendered by Buffon " qu'il 
 ne pent parler quoiqu'il ait plus d'entendement que 
 les autres animaux; " and again, Purchas' affirma- 
 tion, " 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 enleva un petit 
 negre qui passa un an entier dans la societe de 
 ces animaux." 
 
 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 Jocko8, 
 Orangs, and Pongos as all of one species. And 
 perhaps this was as much as the state of knowl- 
 edge 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 totally different a
 
 I BUFFON'S JOCKO. 21 
 
 creature as the blue-faced Baboon, is not so easily 
 intelligible. 
 
 Twenty years later Buffon changed his opin- 
 ion,* and expressed his belief that the Orangs con- 
 stituted a genus with two species, — a large one, 
 the Pongoof 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 Cam- 
 per, published (1779) an essay on the Orang-Utan 
 of similar value to that of Tyson on the Chim- 
 panzee. 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. Fur- 
 thermore, he is very clear as to the specific dis- 
 tinctness 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 
 hands, and its feet are longer, while the thumbs, 
 
 • Hi^toire Naturelle, Suppl. Tome 76me, 1789.
 
 22 THE MAN-LIKE APES. 1 
 
 on the contrary, are much, shorter, and the great 
 toes much smaller in proportion." * 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 follow- 
 ing chapters " (I. 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, pub- 
 lished, in the second part of the Transactions of 
 that Society,! 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 Vos- 
 maer and of Edwards, he says, is found only in 
 Borneo, and chiefly about Banjermassing, Mam- 
 pauwa, and Landak. Of these he had seen some 
 fifty during his residence in the Indies; but none 
 exceeded 2^ feet in length. The larger sort, often 
 regarded as a chimaera, continues Radermacher, 
 would perhaps long have remained so, had it not 
 
 * Camper, (Euvres, i., p. 56. 
 
 t TerhandeUngen van het Bataviaasck Genootschap. 
 Tweede Deel. Derde Uruk. 1826.
 
 I THE ORANG-OUTANG. 23 
 
 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, contrary 
 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 
 Pantiana came on board to see him when we ar- 
 rived." Palm gives his height from the head to 
 the heel as 49 inches. 
 
 A very intelligent German officer, Baron Yon 
 Wurmb, who at this time held a post in the Dutch 
 East India service, and was Secretary of the Bata-
 
 24 THE MAN-LIKE APES. 1 
 
 vian Society, studied this animal, and his careful 
 description of it, entitled " Besehrijving van der 
 Groote Borneosche Orang-outang of de Oost-In- 
 dische 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, 1781,* that the 
 specimen was sent to Europe in brandy to be placed 
 in the collection of the Prince of Orange; " un- 
 fortunately," 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 fe- 
 male 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 I'Ourang-outang," in the collected 
 edition of Camper's works, tome i., pp. 64—66, is a 
 note by Camper himself, 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 meafiiued 
 
 * " Briefe des Herm v. Wurmb und des H. Baron von 
 WoUzogen. Gotha, 1794."
 
 I THE ORANG-OUTANa. 25 
 
 fifty-three inches, or four feet five inches, in 
 height. I have sent some sketches of it to M. Soem- 
 mering at 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 Lucse, and bear date 1783, Soemmering 
 
 Fig. 7. — The Pongo Skull, sent by Radermacher to 
 Camper, after Camper's original sketches, as reproduced 
 by Lucae. 
 
 having received them in 1784. Had either of Von 
 Wurmb's specimens reached 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
 
 26 THE MAN-LIKE APES. 1 
 
 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 De- 
 cember, 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 im- 
 portant features of this skeleton; promises to de- 
 scribe 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 Chim- 
 panzee, Gibbon, and Orang as a fourth and colossal 
 species of man-like Ape. And indeed nothing 
 could look much less like the Chimpanzees or the 
 Orangs, then known, than the Pongo; for all the 
 specimens of Chimpanzee and Orang which had 
 been observed were small of 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 out- 
 growth of the cheeks into fleshy lobes.
 
 I THE ORANG-OUTANa. 27 
 
 Eventually, in accordance with the usual ma- 
 rauding habits of the Eevolutionary armies, the 
 " Pongo " skeleton was carried away from Hol- 
 land 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 Geoff roy St. Hilaire and 
 Cuvier. 
 
 Even in Cuvier's " Tableau Elementaire," and 
 in the first edition of his great work, the " Kegne 
 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,* and after him by Tilesius, that the 
 Bornean Pongo is simply an adult Orang. In 1824, 
 Kudolphi 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 would probably be 
 such as those seen in the Pongo of Wurmb. In 
 the second edition of the " Regne Animal " (1829), 
 Cuvier infers, from the " proportions of all the 
 parts " and " the arrangements of the foramina 
 and sutures of the head," that the Pongo is the 
 adult of the Orang-TJtan, " at least of a very close- 
 
 * See Blumenbach AbbUdnngen Nnturhistorichen Oe- 
 genstande, No. 12, 1810; and Tilesius, Naturhifitoriche 
 Friiehte der ersten Kaiserlich-Russischen Erdumsegelung, 
 p. 115, 1813.
 
 28 THE MAN-LIKE APES. I 
 
 ly allied species," and this conclusion was eventu- 
 ally placed beyond all doubt by Professor Owen's 
 Memoir published in the " Zoological Transac- 
 tions " for 1835, and by Teniminck in his " Mono- 
 graphies de Mammalogie." Temminck's memoir is 
 remarkable for the completeness 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 Schlegei, described the muscles and 
 the viscera of the adult, and gave the earliest de- 
 tailed and trustworthy history of the habits of 
 the great Indian Ape in a state of rature; 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; * and it is 
 as certainly not the Pongo of Battell, seeing that 
 the Orang-Utan 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 Gib- 
 bon — Apes of smaller stature, and therefore at- 
 
 • Speaking broadly and without prejudice to the ques- 
 tion, whether there be more than one species of Orang.
 
 I THE CHIMPANZEE. 29 
 
 tracting less attention than the Orangs, though 
 they are spread over a much wider range of 
 country, and are hence more accessible to observa- 
 tion. 
 
 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 publica^'on 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 
 evident that the old Chimpanzee acquired a size 
 and aspect as different from those of the young 
 known to Tyson, to Buffon, 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
 
 30 THE MAN-LIKE APES. I 
 
 anatomist, have not only confirmed this conclu- 
 sion, but have added many new details.* 
 
 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 
 " Ponofo," would sooner or later be discovered. 
 And, indeed, a modern traveller, Bowdich, had, in 
 1819, found strong evic'ence, among the natives, 
 of the existence of a seconJl 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. 
 
 In 1847, Dr. Savage had the good fortune to 
 make another and most important addition to ouX 
 knowledge of the man-like Apes; for, being un- 
 expectedly detained at the Gaboon river, he saw in 
 the house of the Kev. Mr. Wilson, a missionary 
 resident there, " a skull represented by the natives 
 to be a monkey-like animal, remarkable for its 
 
 * See " Observations on the external characters and hab- 
 its of the Troglodytes niger, by Thomas N. Savage, M. D., 
 and on its organization, by Jetfries Wyman, M. D.," Bos- 
 ton Journal of Xatvral History, vol. iv. 1843-4; and 
 "External characters, habits, and osteology of Troglo- 
 dytes Gorilla," by the same authors, ibid. vol. v. 1847.
 
 1 THE GORILLA. 31 
 
 size, ferocity, and habits." From the contour of the 
 skull, and the information derived from several 
 intelligent natives, " I was induced," says Dr. Sav- 
 age (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 inspection of a specimen 
 alive or dead." The result of the combined exer- 
 tions of Messrs. Savage and Wilson was not only 
 the obtaining of a verv full account of the habits 
 of this new creature, but a still more important 
 service to science, the enabling the excellent 
 American anatomist already mentioned. Professor 
 Wyman, to describe, from ample materials, the 
 distinctive osteological characters of the new form. 
 This animal was called bv the natives of the Gaboon 
 " Enge-ena," a name obviously 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 Bat- 
 tell. 
 
 The justice of this conclusion, indeed, is beyond 
 doubt — for not only does the " Enge-ena " agree 
 with Battell'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 
 inhabits these latitudes — the Chimpanzee — is at 
 once identified, by its smaller size, as the " lesser 
 monster," and is excluded from any possibility of
 
 32 THE MAN-LIKE APES. I 
 
 being the " Pongo," by the fact that it is black 
 and not dun, to say nothing of the important cir- 
 cumstance 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 pres- 
 ent well-known appellation. But Dr. Savage, more 
 cautious than some of his successors, by no means 
 identifies his ape with Hanno'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 Carthagin- 
 ian admiral. 
 
 Since the memoir of Savage and Wyman was 
 published, the skeleton of the Gorilla has been 
 investigated by Professor Owen and by the late 
 Professor Duvernoy, of the Jardin des Plantes, the 
 latter having further supplied a valuable account 
 of the muscular system and of many of the other 
 soft parts; while African missionaries and travellers 
 have confirmed and expanded the account origi- 
 nally given of the habits of this great man-like
 
 I THE GIBBONS. 33 
 
 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 re- 
 sult that there are four distinct kinds of Anthro- 
 poids — 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 char- 
 acters 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 in- 
 cisors, two canines, and four molars in each jaw. 
 They are what are called catarrhine Apes — that is, 
 their nostrils have a narrow partition and look 
 downwards; and, furthermore, their arms are al- 
 ways longer than their legs, the difference being 
 sometimes 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^ — 1), Gibbon 
 (1^—1), Gorilla (1^—1), Chimpanzee (l-^^r-l), 
 167
 
 34 THE MAN-LIKE APES. 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 An- 
 thropoids 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 adult 
 males, are commonly produced into two crescentic, 
 flexible excrescences, like fatty tumours. The 
 Chimpanzees have arms which reach below the 
 knees; they have large thumbs and great toes; 
 their hands are longer than their feet; 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.
 
 t THE GIBBONS. 35 
 
 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 char- 
 acters of the genera and species into which these 
 man-like Apes are divided by naturalists. Suf- 
 fice it to say, that the Orangs and the Gibbons con- 
 stitute the distinct genera, Simia and Hylohates; 
 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 
 America and of Asia; to form magnificent collec- 
 tions as he wanders; and withal to think out saga- 
 ciously the conclusions suggested by his collections: 
 but, to the ordinary explorer or collector, the dense 
 forests of equatorial Asia and Africa, which con- 
 stitute the favourite habitation of the Orang, the 
 Chimpanzee, and the Gorilla, present difficulties 
 of no ordinary magnitude; and the man who risks
 
 36 THE MAN-LIKE APES. 1 
 
 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 con- 
 tents himself with stimulating the industry of the 
 better seasoned natives, and collecting and collat- 
 ing 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 re- 
 lates to the Orangs; while our knowledge of the 
 habits of the Chimpanzee and the Gorilla stands 
 much in need of support and enlargement by ad- 
 ditional testimony from instructed European eye- 
 witnesses. 
 
 It will therefore be convenient in endeavour- 
 ing to form a notion of what we are justified in 
 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 of 
 criterion of the probable truth or falsehood of 
 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,
 
 I THE GIBBONS. 37 
 
 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 darker 
 valleys. 
 
 All observers testify to the prodigious volume 
 of 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 pene- 
 trating, resembling the sounds goek, goek, gSek, 
 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," be-
 
 r-^^..U«?^ 
 
 Fig. 8.— a Gibbon {U. pileatm), after Wolf.
 
 I THE GIBBONS. 39 
 
 comes 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. Martin * 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 mu- 
 sician 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, f a very excellent observer, in de- 
 scribing the habits of a male Hylobates syndadylus 
 which remained for some time in his possession, 
 says: " He invariably walks in the erect posture 
 when on a level surface; and then the arms eitlier 
 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 
 
 * Man and Monkicfi, p. 423. 
 
 t Wanderings in New South Wales, vol. ii. chap. viii. 
 1834.
 
 40 THE MAN-LIKE APES. I 
 
 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 outwards, 
 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 veiy prettily, by rais- 
 ing 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 their hands to the ground, and assist them- 
 selves forward, rather jumping than running, still keep- 
 ing the body, however, nearly erect." 
 
 Somewhat different evidence, however, is given 
 by Dr. Winslow Lewis: * 
 
 " Their only manner of walking was on their 
 posterior or inferior extremities, the others being 
 raised upwards to preserve their equilibrium, as 
 rope-dancers are assisted by long poles at fairs. 
 Their progression was not by placing one foot be- 
 fore the other, but by simultaneously using both, 
 as in jumping." Dr. Salomon Miiller 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 (?. c. p. 418), who also speaks 
 
 • Boston Journal of Natural History, vol. i. 1834.
 
 1 THE GIBBONS. 41 
 
 from direct observation, says of the Gibbons 
 generally: 
 
 " Pre-eminently qualified for arboreal habits, and dis- 
 playing among the branches amazing activity, the Gib- 
 bons are not so awkward or embarrassed on a level sur- 
 face 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 uplifting 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 pe- 
 culiar locomotive powers, and that prodigious 
 activity which almost tempts one to rank them 
 among flying, rather than among ordinary climb- 
 ing mammals. 
 
 Mr. Martin (I. c. p. 430) has given so excellent 
 and graphic an account of the movements of a 
 Hylohates 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 ex-
 
 42 THE MAN-LIKE APES. 1 
 
 hibits her evolutions. 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 acquired: the branch then aimed at is 
 attained by the right hand again and quitted instantane- 
 ously, and so on in alternate succession. In this manner 
 spaces of twelve and eighteen feet are cleared, with the 
 greatest ease and uninterruptedly, for hours together, 
 without the slightest appearance of fatigue being mani- 
 fested; and it is evident that if more space could be al- 
 lowed, distances very greatly exceeding eighteen feet 
 would be as easily cleared; so that jJuvaucel'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 con- 
 tinue her progress with undiminished velocity. It is sin- 
 gular 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 abate- 
 ment 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. 
 
 " 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 pas- 
 sage, and attained the branch with her other hand; her 
 aim, both at the bird and at the branch, being as success- 
 ful as if one object only had engaged her attention. It
 
 I THE GIBBONS. 43 
 
 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 Hylo- 
 hates 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 
 their faces, 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 anec-
 
 44 THE MAN-LIKE APES. I 
 
 dote, told by Mr. Bennett {I. c. p. 156), will show. 
 It would appear that his Gibbon had a peculiar in- 
 clination for disarranging things in the cabin. 
 Among these articles, a piece of soap would espe- 
 cially 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 in- 
 stant he found I saw him, he walked back again, 
 and deposited the soap nearly in the same place 
 from whence he 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 
 history of the Orang-Utan extant, is that given 
 in the " Verhandelingen over de Natuurlijke Ge- 
 schiedenis der Nederlandsche overzeesche Bezit- 
 tingen (1839-'4.'5)," by Dr. Salomon Miiller and 
 Dr. Schlegel, and I shall base what I have to say
 
 Fig. 9. — An adult male Orang-Utan, after Miiller and 
 
 Schlegel.
 
 46 THE MAN-LIKE APES. I 
 
 ■upon this subject almost entirely on their state- 
 ments, adding, here and there, particulars of in- 
 terest 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 circumfer- 
 ence.* 
 
 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 
 extend from the sea-shore inland, and thus is 
 found only in the eastern half of Sumatra, where 
 alone such foreats occur, though, occasionally, it 
 strays over to the western side. 
 
 * The largest Orang-Utan, cited by Temminck, meas- 
 ured, 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, 1.2.5 Nether- 
 lands " 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," \^ in. across the face, and 12 in. round the 
 wrist. It does not appear, however, that Mr. St. John 
 measured this Orang himself.
 
 I THE ORANG. 47 
 
 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 oc- 
 casionally 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 pro- 
 tection, probably in consequence of their slow 
 growth. While climbing, the mother always car- 
 ries her young against her bosom, the young hold- 
 ing on by his mother's hair.* At what time of 
 life the Orang-Utan becomes capable of propaga- 
 tion, and how long the females go with young, is 
 unknown, but it is probable that they are not adult 
 until they 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 
 
 * 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 buflFalo-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 
 
 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 it 
 
 is too windy and cold there for him; but, as soon 
 
 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
 
 i- THE ORANG. 49 
 
 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; 
 w^hile to make the bed soft, great leaves of Ferns, 
 of Orchids, of Pandanus fascicularis, Nipa fruti- 
 cans, &c., are laid over them. Those which Miil- 
 ler saw, many of them being very fresh, were situ- 
 ated 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 plat- 
 form. " The rude hut," 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 
 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- 
 16P
 
 50 THE MAN-LIKE APES. l 
 
 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 pro- 
 vided with no callosities, such as are possessed 
 by many of the lower apes, and even by the Gib- 
 bons; and those bones of the pelvis, which are 
 termed the ischia, and which form the solid frame- 
 work of the surface on which the body rests in 
 the sitting posture, are not expanded like those 
 of the apes which possess callosities, but are more 
 like those of man. 
 
 An Orang climbs so slowly and cautiously,* as, 
 
 * " They are the slowest and least active of all the 
 monkey tribe, and their motions are surprisingly awk-
 
 1 THE ORANG. 51 
 
 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. UnUke 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 cHmbing, 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 an- 
 other, he always seeks out a place where the twigs 
 of both come close together, or interlace. Even 
 when closely pursued, his circumspection is amaz- 
 ing: 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.* 
 
 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 
 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 
 making his way along by the help of a stick. In 
 walking, the body is usually directed straight for- 
 ward and uncouth." — Sir James Brooke, in the Proceed- 
 ings of the Zooloijical Society, 1841. 
 
 * Mr. Wallace's account of the progression of the 
 Orang almost exactly corresponds with this.
 
 62 THE MAN-LIKE APEa i 
 
 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 fin- 
 gers are then bent out in such a manner that their 
 foremost joints, especially those of the two inner- 
 most 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 vari- 
 ous kinds, constitute the chief nutriment of the 
 Orang; but strips of bamboo ^wo 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
 
 7 THE ORANa. 53 
 
 goon becomes domesticated, and indeed seems to 
 court human society, it is naturally a very wild 
 and shy animal, though apparently sluggish and 
 melancholy. The Dyaks affirm, that when the old 
 males are wounded with arrows only, they will oc- 
 casionally 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.* 
 
 * 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 
 unfortunate 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 
 off 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 evi- 
 dent that a bough cannot be thrown to any distance from 
 the top of a lofty tree. In one case a female Mias, on a 
 durian tree, kept up for at least ten minutes a continu- 
 ous shower of branches and of the heavy, spined fruits, 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 mischief." — " On the Habits of the
 
 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 proba- 
 bly 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. 
 
 Oranp-Utan," Anrnils of Natural Hisiory. 1856. Thia 
 statement, it will be observed, is quite in accordance with 
 that contained in the letter of the Resident Palm quoted 
 above (p. 23).
 
 X THE ORANG. 55 
 
 " 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 direc- 
 tion 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 an- 
 other), his great weapons of offence and defence 
 being his hands. 
 
 His intelligence was very great; and Miiller re- 
 marks that though the faculties of the Orang have 
 been estimated too highly, yet Cuvier, had he seen 
 this specimen, would not have considered its intelli- 
 gence 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, 
 and which, in drinking, he poured into the trough 
 thus formed. 
 
 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 
 Zimo, Mias Kassu, and Mias Rambi. Whether 
 these are distinct species, however, or whether they
 
 56 THE MAN-LIKE APES. I 
 
 are mere races, and how far any of them are 
 identical with the Sumatran Orang, as Mr. Wal- 
 lace thinks the Mias Pappan to be, are problems 
 which are at present undecided; and the variabil- 
 ity 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 * observes, 
 
 " It is known by its large size, and by the lateral ex- 
 pansion 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, measured 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 7i inches, and the extent of the outstretched 
 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 dif- 
 ferent parts of the same individual; some possessed a 
 rudimentary nail on the great toe, others none at all ; but 
 they otherwise present no external differences on which 
 to establish even varieties of a species. 
 
 " Yet, when we examine the crania of these indi- 
 viduals, we find remarkable differences of form, propor- 
 tion, and dimension, no two being exactly alike. The 
 slope of the profile, and the projection of the muzzle, to- 
 gether with the size of the cranium, 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 
 
 * On the Orang-Utan, or Mias of Borneo, Annals of 
 Natural History, 1856.
 
 1 THE ORANG. 57 
 
 cranial ridge is either single or double, either much or 
 little developed, and the zygomatic aperture varies con- 
 siderably in size. This variation in the proportions of the 
 crania enables us satisfactorily to explain the marked dif- 
 fernce 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 ne- 
 cessary relation to each other, a small muscle often exist- 
 ing 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 de- 
 posit 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 compara- 
 tively weak jaws, and small zygomatic aperture, the mus- 
 cles, 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 dif- 
 ferent from any of these that he concludes them 
 to be specifically distinct; they were respectively 
 3 feet 8| inches and 3 feet 9| inches high, and 
 possessed no sign of the cheek excrescences, but 
 otherwise resembled the larger kinds. The skull
 
 58 THE MAN-LIKE APES. 1 
 
 has no crest, but two bony ridges, If inches to 
 2 inches apart, as in the Simla morio of Professor 
 Owen, The teeth, however, are immense, equal- 
 ling or surpassing those of the other species. The 
 females of both these kinds, according to Mr. Wal- 
 lace, 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 di- 
 rect support from its arms. 
 
 Sndly, 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 espe- 
 cially 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 jus- 
 tify us in expecting the African species to offer 
 similar peculiarities, separately or combined; or, 
 at any rate, would destroy the force of any at- 
 tempted 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 posi- 
 tion 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 down- 
 wards, the habits of the young Chimpanzee in 
 a state of captivity have been abundantly reported 
 and commented upon. But trustworthy evidence 
 as to the manners and customs of adult anthro- 
 poids 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 al- 
 ready referred; containing notes of the observa- 
 tions which h^made, and of the information which 
 he collected from sources which he considered 
 trustworthy, while resident at Cape Palmas, at the 
 north-western limit of the Bight of Benin. 
 
 The adult Chimpanzees measured by Dr. Sav- 
 age, never exceeded, though the males may almost 
 attain, five feet in height.
 
 60 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 
 
 "When at rest the sitting posture is that generally 
 assumed. They are sometimes seen standing and walk- 
 ing, 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 
 inwards, 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 unnatural. 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 astonish- 
 ing 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 ' chil- 
 dren ' are leaping around them, and s^\^nging from tree 
 to tree with boisterous merriment. 
 
 " As seen here, they cannot be called gregarious, sel- 
 dom 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 oflFensive, and seldom, if ever really, on the de- 
 fensive. When about to be captured, they resist by throw- 
 ing their arms about their opponent, and attempting to 
 draw him into contact with their teeth." (Savage, I. c. 
 p. 384.)
 
 I THE CHIMPANZEE. 61 
 
 With respect to this last point Dr. Savage is 
 very explicit in another place: 
 
 " 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 mani- 
 fest it. At first they reject flesh, but easily acquire a 
 fondness for it. The canines are early developed, and evi- 
 dently 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 habita- 
 tions in trees. Their construction is more that of tiests 
 than huts, as they have been erroneously termed by some 
 naturalists. They generally build not far above the 
 ground. Branches or twigs are 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 unusual height. 
 
 " Their dwelling-place is not permanent, but changed 
 in pursuit of food and solitude, according to tlie force of 
 circumstances. 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
 
 62 THE MAN-LIKE APES. l 
 
 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 pro- 
 pensities, 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 con- 
 sidered a highly palatable morsel. 
 
 " They exhibit a remarkable degree of intelligence in 
 their habits, and, on the part of the mother, much affec- 
 tion for their 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 offspring. 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, re- 
 mained upon the tree with her offspring, watching in- 
 tently the movements of the hunter. As he took aim, she 
 motioned with her hand, precisely in the manner of a hu- 
 man 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 pressing with the 
 hand upon the part, and when this did not succeed, to 
 apply leaves and grass. . . . When shot, they give a sud- 
 den screech, not unlike that of a human being in sudden 
 and acute distress." 
 
 The ordinary voice of the Chimpanzee, how- 
 ever, iB affirmed to be hoarse, guttural, and not 
 very loud, somewhat like " whoo-whoo." (I. c. p. 
 365.)
 
 1 THE GORILLA. 63 
 
 The analogy of the Chimpanzee to the Orang, 
 in its nest-building habit and in the mode of 
 forming 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 geo- 
 graphical 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 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,* 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 ] 
 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, studying, 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 
 
 * Notice of the external characters and habits of Trog- 
 lodytes Gorilla. Boston Journal of Natural History, 
 
 1847.
 
 Fig. 10.— The Gorilla, after Wolf.
 
 I THE GORILLA. 65 
 
 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 proba- 
 bly a corruption of the word Mpongwe, the name of the 
 tribe on the banks of the Gaboon, and hence applied to 
 the region they inhabit. Their local name for the Chim- 
 panzee is Enche-eko, as near as it can be Anglicised, from 
 which the common term ' Jocko ' probably comes. The 
 Mpongwe appellation for its new congener is Eng6-ena, 
 prolonging the sound of the first vowel, and slightly sound- 
 ing the second. 
 
 " The habitat of «the Etigc-ena is the interior of lower 
 Guinea, whilst that of the Enche-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 EncM-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 leatures 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 Enchi-eko, a bright hazel; 
 nose broad and flat, slightly elevated towards the root; 
 the muzzle broad, and prominent lips and chin, with scat- 
 tered gray hairs ; the under lip highly mobile, and capable 
 169
 
 QQ THE MAN-LIKE APES. I 
 
 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 posteriorly 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 en- 
 raged is said to contract it strongly over the brow, thus 
 bringing down the hairy ridge and pointing the hair for- 
 ward, so as to present an indescribably ferocious aspect. 
 
 Fig. 11.— Gorilla walking (after Wolf). 
 
 " Neck short, thick, and hairy ; chest and shoulders 
 very broad, said to be fully double the size of the Ench6- 
 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 upright as in man, but bent forward, is somewhat 
 rolling, or 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
 
 1 THE GORILLA. 67 
 
 arms forward, resting the hands on the ground, and then 
 giving the body a half jumping, half swinging motion be- 
 tween them. In this aet 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. 
 
 " They live in bands, but are not so numerous as the 
 Chimpanzees; 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 killing 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 ele- 
 phants and then adds — 
 
 " 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 encountered by them except on the defen- 
 sive. The few that have been captured were killed by 
 elephant hunters and native traders, as they came sud- 
 denly 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 ex- 
 piration, his under lip hangs over the chin, and the hairy
 
 68 THE MAN-LIKE APES. l 
 
 ridge and scalp are contracted upon the brow, presenting 
 an aspect of indescribable ferocity. 
 
 " The females and young, at the first cry, quickly dis- 
 appear. 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 nlger, building their nests loose- 
 ly 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 
 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 in- 
 formed (credibly, I think) that they were numerous
 
 I THE GORILLA. 69 
 
 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 in- 
 formation, 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 Mpong- 
 we 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 informa- 
 tion in years past, as the opportunities for recei\ing 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 
 170 lbs., without the thoracic, or pelvic, viscera, 
 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 witnessed 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 pos- 
 ture.
 
 YO THE MAX-LIKE APES. I 
 
 " Though he never lies in wait, yet, when he hears, 
 sees, or scents a man, he immediately utters his charac- 
 teristic cry, prepares 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 attend- 
 ing the females and young ones, by whom he is usually 
 accompanied, to a little distance. He, however, soon re- 
 turns, -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 antagonist 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- 
 informed natives believe them. They are tales 
 told to children. 
 
 I might quote other testimony to a similar ef- 
 fect, 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.
 
 I THE GORILLA. 71 
 
 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 Gib- 
 bons: 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 the 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 
 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 
 statements 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 
 aSirmed as a matter of his own observation
 
 72 THE MAN-LIKE APES. i 
 
 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 
 very much worth disputing about, in this state- 
 ment. 
 
 With respect to the other man-like Apes of 
 Africa, M. Du Chaillu tells us absolutely nothing, 
 of his own knowledge, regarding the common 
 Chimpanzee; but he informs us of a bald-headed 
 species or variety, the nschiego nibouve, 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 mat- 
 ters 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 inherent improbability in his assertions re- 
 specting 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 in- 
 explicable confusion, it has no claim to original au- 
 thority 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 narrative of 
 Lopez, which I have quoted above, I came upon so curious 
 and unexpected an anticipation, by some two centuries 
 and a half, of one of the most startling parts of M. Du 
 Chaillu's narrative, that 1 cannot refrain from drawing 
 attention to it in a note, although 1 must confess that the 
 subject is not strictly relevant to the matter in hand. 
 
 In the fifth chapter of the first book of the " De- 
 scriptio," " Concerning the northern part of the King- 
 dom 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 ap- 
 pears to be the country now inhabited by the Ogobai and 
 Bakalai according to M. Du Chaillu. — " Beyond these 
 dwell another people called * Anziques,' of incredible feroc- 
 ity, 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 defen- 
 sive armour they employ elephant hides. They cut their 
 skins when young, so as to produce scars. " Their butch- 
 ers' shops are filled with human flesh instead of that of 
 oxen or sheep. For they eat the enemies whom they 
 
 73
 
 74 
 
 AFRICAN CANNIBALISM. 
 
 Fig. 12. — Butcher's Shop of the Anziques Anno 1598. 
 
 take in battle. They fatten, slay and devour their slaves 
 also, unless they think they shall get a good price for 
 them; and, moreover, sometimes for weariness of life or 
 desire of glory (for they think it a great thing and the
 
 1 AFRICAN CAXXIBALISM. Y5 
 
 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 repre- 
 sented 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, " ingeniously sheathed in snake 
 skins." " They tattoo themselves more than any other 
 tribes I have met north of the equator." And all the 
 world knows what M. Du Chaillu says of their cannibal- 
 ism — " 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 state- 
 ments of his author, and it is to be regretted that, with 
 so good an excuse, he has not furnished us with a fitting 
 companion to the sketch of the brothers De Bry.
 
 
 
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 11. 
 
 01^ THE EELATIOXS OF MAN TO THE 
 LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 Multis videri potent, majorem esse differentiam Simise et 
 Hominis, quam diei et noctis; verum tamen hi, com- 
 paratione instituta inter summos Europae Heroes et 
 Hottentottes ad Caput bonae spei degentes, difficillime 
 sibi persuadebunt, has eosdem habere natales; vel si 
 virginem nobilem aulicam, maxime comtam et hu- 
 manissimam, conferre vellent cum homine sylvestri et 
 sibi relicto, vix augurari possent, huno et illam ejus- 
 dem esse speciei. — Linnwi Amoenitates Acad. " Anthro- 
 pomorpha." 
 
 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 na- 
 ture 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 themselves anew and 
 vith undiminished interest to every man born 
 
 77
 
 78 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 into the world. Most of us, shrinking from the 
 difficulties and dangers which beset the seeker 
 after original answers to these riddles, are con- 
 tented 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 athe- 
 ism which denies the existence of any orderly pro- 
 gress 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
 
 n MENTAL ECDYSES OF MAN. 79 
 
 when tested by the larger knowledge of their suc- 
 cessors. 
 
 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 pro- 
 cess, and even if he have nothing but a scalpel to 
 work withal, to ease the cracking integument 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 un- 
 derstanding 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 history * has been sketched in the preced- 
 ing 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 per- 
 haps, 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 preju- 
 dices regarding his own position in nature, and 
 
 * It will he understood that, in the preceding Essay, I 
 have selected for notice from the vast mass of papers 
 which have been written upon the man-like Apes, only 
 those which seem to me 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 deep- 
 est consequences, for all who are acquainted with 
 the recent progress of the anatomical and physio- 
 logical sciences. 
 
 I now propose briefly to unfold that argument, 
 and to set forih, 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 im- 
 mediate conclusion which, in my judgment, is 
 justified by those facts, and I shall finally discuss 
 the bearing of that conclusion upon the hypoth- 
 eses which have been entertained respecting 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 reve- 
 lations of Biology. I refer to those facts which 
 have been made known by the study of Develop- 
 ment. 
 
 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 through a series of changes, 
 the sum of which is called its Development. In 
 the higher animals these changes are extremely 
 complicated; but, within the last half century, 
 the labours of such men as Von Baer, Kathke, 
 Eeichert, Bischoff, and Remak, have almost com- 
 pletely unravelled them, so that the successive 
 stages of development which are exhibited by a 
 Dog, for example, are now as well known to the 
 embryologist as are the steps of the metamor- 
 phosis 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 de- 
 velopment, 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 gemiinal 
 vesicle {a), and its included spot (ft). B. C. D. E. F. Suc- 
 cessive changes of the yelk indicated in the text. After 
 BisehoflF. 
 
 The Dog's egg is, in fact, a little spheroidal 
 bag (Fig. 13), formed of a delicate transparent 
 membrane called the vitelline membrane, and about 
 Yj-u-th to Y^th of an inch in diameter. It con- 
 tains a mass of viscid nutritive matter — the yelk
 
 84 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 
 
 — 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 (6). 
 
 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 pro- 
 tracted process of gestation. Here, when sub- 
 jected to the required conditions, this minute and 
 apparently insignificant particle of living matter 
 becomes animated by a new and mysterious activ- 
 ity. 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 in- 
 visible 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 his 
 operations in a brick-field. She takes the rough
 
 n THE CELLULAR EMBRYO. 85 
 
 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 thick- 
 ening, a straight shallow groove (Fig. l-i, A) 
 marks the central line of the edifice which is to 
 be raised, or, in other words, indicates the posi- 
 tion 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 eventu- 
 ally lodge the spinal marrow and the brain; and 
 in the floor of this chamber appears a solid cellu- 
 lar 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 be- 
 comes 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, as- 
 sume the shape of limbs. Watching the fashion- 
 ing process stage by stage, one is forcibly reminded 
 of the modeller in clay. Every part, every organ, 
 is at first, as it were pinched up rudely, and
 
 86 
 
 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 sketched out in the rough; then shaped more accu- 
 rately; and only, at last, receives the touches 
 which stamp its final character. 
 
 Thus, at length, the young puppy assumes 
 such a form as is shown in Fig. 14, C. In this 
 
 Fig. 14. — A. Earliest rudiment of the Dog. B. Rudi- 
 ment 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. 
 
 condition is has a disproportionately large head, 
 as dissimilar to that of a dog as the bud-like limbs 
 are unlike his legs. 
 
 The remains of the yelk, which have not yet 
 been applied to the nutrition and growth of the
 
 n FCETAL APPENDAGES. 87 
 
 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 protection 
 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 eventu- 
 ally applying itself to the walls of the cavity, in 
 which the developing organism is contained, en- 
 ables 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 de- 
 velopment further; suffice it to say, that, by a long 
 and gradual series of changes, the rudiment here 
 depicted and described, becomes a puppy, is born, 
 and then, by still slower and less perceptible steps, 
 passes into the adult Dog.
 
 88 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ii 
 
 There is not much apparent resemblance be- 
 tween a barn-door Fowl and the Dog who protects 
 the farm-yard. Nevertheless the student of de- 
 velopment finds, not only that the chick com- 
 mences 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 
 undero-oes division, or segmentation as it is often 
 called: the ultimate products of that segmenta- 
 tion 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 dif- 
 ferences between them are inconsiderable, while, 
 in their subsequent course they diverge more an^
 
 n DEVELOPMENT OF MAN. 89 
 
 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 an- 
 other: 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 nutri- 
 tion, 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 identical with those of the animals im-
 
 90 
 
 MAN AND THE LOW^R ANIMALS. 
 
 mediately 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 y^th of an inch 
 in diameter, and might be described in the same 
 terms as that of the Dog, so that I need only refer 
 
 Fig. 15. — A. Human ovum (after Kolliker). a. ger- 
 minal vesicle, b. germinal spot. B. A very early condi- 
 tion of Man, with yelk-sac, allantois and amnion (origi- 
 nal). C. A more advanced stage (after Kolliker), com- 
 pare Fig. 14, C. 
 
 to the figure illustrative (15 A) of its structure. 
 It leaves the organ in which it is formed in a 
 similar fashion and enters the organic chamber 
 prepared 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 
 by some rare chance can it ever be possible) to
 
 n DEVELOPMENT OF MAN. 91 
 
 study the human ovum in so early a develop- 
 mental 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 hu- 
 man 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 above and, as will be seen, they 
 are strictly comparable 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 comparison 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, be- 
 comes 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 ex- 
 tracts 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 resem- 
 bles 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 be- 
 ing presents marked differences from the young 
 ape, while the latter departs as much from the 
 dog in its development, 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 ani- 
 mal 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, 
 a marvellous likeness of organization. He resem-
 
 u THE CLASSIFICATION OF MAN. 93 
 
 bles them as they resemble one another — he dif- 
 fers 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 ani- 
 mals now current among zoologists. 
 
 A careful study of the resemblances and dif- 
 ferences 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 be- 
 ing smaller as the group is larger and vice versa. 
 Thus, all creatures which agree only in present- 
 ing the few distinctive marks of animality form 
 the Kingdom Animalia. The numerous animals 
 which agree only in possessing the special char- 
 acters of Vertebrates form one Sub-kingdom of this 
 Kingdom. Then the Sub-kingdom Vertebkata 
 is subdivided into the five Classes, Fishes, Am- 
 phibians, 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. 
 
 Every year tends to bring about a greater uni-
 
 94 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 formity 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 charac- 
 ters of the classes Mammalia, Aves, or Reptilia; 
 nor does the question arise whether any thor- 
 oughly 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 Opos- 
 sum, 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 im- 
 mensely, in such matters as the proportions and 
 structure of their limbs; the number of their 
 dorsal and lumbar vertebrae; the adaptation of 
 their frames to climbing, leaping, or running; the 
 number and form of their teeth; and the char- 
 acters of their skulls and of the contained brain. 
 But, with all these differences, they are so closely 
 connected in all the more important and funda- 
 mental characters of their organization, and so 
 distinctly separated by these same characters from 
 other animals, that zoologists find it necessary to 
 group them together as members of one order.
 
 n THE CLASSIFICATION OF MAN. 95 
 
 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 rea- 
 soning in mind, let us endeavour for a moment to 
 disconnect our thinking selves from the mask of 
 humanity; let us imagine ourselves scientific Sa- 
 turnians, if you will, fairly acquainted with such 
 animals as now inhabit the Earth, and employed 
 in discussing the relations they bear to a new 
 and singular " erect and featherless biped," which 
 some enterprising traveller, overcoming the dif- 
 ficulties 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 nour- 
 ished 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 
 hoofed creatures, nor the Sloths and Ant-eaters,
 
 96 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 nor the carnivorous Cats, Dogs, and Bears, still 
 less the Eodent Rats and Rabbits, or the Insectiv- 
 orous 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 the word in 
 its broadest sease), 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 dimin- 
 ish 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 undoubtedlv place the 
 newly discovered tellurian genus with them. 
 
 I now proceed to detail the facts which seem 
 to me to leave us no choice but to adopt the last- 
 mentioned course.
 
 n CLASSIFICATION: GORILLA. 97 
 
 It is quite certain tliat 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 difEerence, 
 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,* I shall select the latter (so far as its 
 organisation is known) — as a brute now so cele- 
 brated 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 
 necessities 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 
 the Gorilla and Man, which at once strikes the 
 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 v^erieDral column of a full-grown 
 
 * We are not at present thoroughly acquainted with 
 the brain of the Gorilla, and therefore, in discussing cere- 
 bral characters, I shall take that of the Chimpanzee as 
 my highest term among the Apes. 
 
 171
 
 98 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 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 9f inches long; 
 the foot 11:^ 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 meas- 
 urement, 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 
 -jJg- and ^ longer than the spine in the latter. The 
 foot is longer and the hand much longer in 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
 
 n GORILLA AND OTHER APES. 99 
 
 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 col- 
 umn 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 -^ths 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 
 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.* 
 
 •See the figures of the skeletons of four anthropoid 
 apes and of man, drawn to scale, p. 76,
 
 100 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 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 -i^ 
 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 propor- 
 tion of its limbs the Gorilla differs from Man, the 
 other Apes depart still more widely from the Go- 
 rilla 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. 
 
 In Man, in consequence partly of the disposi- 
 tion of the articular surfaces of the vertebrae, and 
 largely of the elastic tension of some of the fibrous 
 bands, or ligaments, the spinal column, as a whole, 
 has an elegant S-like curvature, being convex for-
 
 n MAN AND GORILLA. 101 
 
 wards 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 dimin- 
 ishes 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, bear- 
 ing 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 similar- 
 ly divided into cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and 
 coccygeal vertebra?, and the total number of cer- 
 vical and dorsal vertebrae, taken together, is the 
 same as in Man; but the development of a pair of 
 ribs to the first lumbar vertebra, which is an ex- 
 ceptional occurrence in Man, is the rule in the 
 Gorilla; and hence, as lumbar are distinguished 
 from dorsal vertebrae only by the presence or ab- 
 sence of free ribs, the seventeen " dorso-lumbar '*
 
 102 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 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 pos- 
 sess thirteen pair of ribs,* but the Gorilla some- 
 times has fourteen pairs, while an Orang-Utan 
 skeleton in the Museum of the Koyal College of 
 Surgeons has twelve dorsal and five lumbar ver- 
 tebrae, 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 four- 
 teen dorsal and eight lumbar, 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- 
 acter of its curves, especially in the slighter con- 
 vexity of the lumbar region. Nevertheless, the 
 curves are present, and are quite obvious in young 
 skeletons of the Gorilla and Chimpanzee which 
 have been prepared without removal of the liga- 
 ments. In young Orangs similarly preserved on 
 
 • " 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 vertebrae." Fallopius 
 noted thirteen pair of ribs and only four lumbar vertebrae ; 
 and Eustachius once found eleven dorsal vertebrae and 
 six lumbar vertebrae. — CEuvres de Pierre Camper, T. 1, 
 p. 42. As Tyson states, his " Pygmie " had thirteen pair 
 of ribs and five lumbar vertebrae. The question of the 
 curves of the spinal column in the Apes requires further 
 investigation.
 
 n GORILLA AND OTHER APES. 103 
 
 the other hand, the spinal column is either 
 straight, or even concave forwards, throughout the 
 lumhar 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 whatso- 
 ever 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 mus- 
 cles which enable him to assume and to preserve 
 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 structure. Look 
 at the flat, narrow haunch bones — the long and 
 narrow passage — the coarse, outwardly curved, 
 ischiatic prominences on which the Gibbon habitu- 
 ally rests, and which are coated by the so-called 
 " callosities," dense patches of skin, wholly absent 
 in the Gorilla, in the Chimpanzee, and in the 
 Orang, as in Man! 
 
 In the lower Monkeys and in the Lemurs the
 
 Gihonn. 
 
 M.r^tV^^VT^M?"* •''°'^ ^'^« ^e^^-« of the bony pelvis of
 
 n 
 
 GORILLA AND MAN: SKULL. 105 
 
 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 of the 
 skull is comparatively smooth, and the supraciliary 
 ridges or brow prominences usually project but 
 little— while, in the Gorilla, vast crests are de- 
 veloped upon the skull, and the brow ridges over- 
 hang the cavernous orbits, like great penthouses. 
 
 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-
 
 106 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 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 ob- 
 served 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 34^ 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.* 
 
 * 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 capac- 
 ity which I have assumed above, however, is based upon 
 the valuable tables published by Professor R. Wagner in 
 his Vorstudicn zn einer tcissenschaftlichen Morphologie 
 und Physiologic des menschlichen Gehrius. As the result 
 of the careful weighing of more than 900 human brains, 
 Professor Wagner states that one-half weighed between 
 1200 and 1400 grammes, and that about two-ninths, con- 
 sisting 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 contains 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
 
 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 be- 
 tween the lowest Man and the highest Ape, while, 
 relatively, it is about the same. For the largest 
 human skull measured by Morton contained 114 
 cubic inches, that is to say, had very nearly double 
 the capacity of the smallest; while its absolute pre- 
 ponderance, of 52 cubic inches — is far greater 
 than that by which the lowest adult 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 maxi- 
 mum capacity being 34.5 cubic inches, the mini- 
 mum 24 cubic inches; and^ thirdly, after making 
 
 brain, weighing as little as 970 grammes, is that of an 
 idiot; but the brain of an adult woman, against the 
 soundness of whose faculties nothing appears, weighed as 
 little as 907 grammes (5.5.3 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 127.5 and 992 grammes. So 
 that it may be safely said, that an average European child 
 of four years old has a brain twice as lai^e as that of an 
 adult Gorilla.
 
 108 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 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 low- 
 est 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 
 confer 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 proj^er only, the little 
 Clirysoihrix (Fig. 17) differs very widely from the 
 Gorilla, and, in the same way, as Man does; while 
 the Baboons {Cynocephalus, Fig. 17) exaggerate 
 the gross proportions of the muzzle of the great 
 Anthropoid, so that its visage looks mild and hu- 
 man by comparison with theirs. The difference 
 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
 
 ATJSTHAXilAN. 
 
 CHRTSOTHHIX. 
 
 GORXLliA- 
 
 CYNOCEPHALXJS 
 
 MYCETEiS. 
 
 liEMUR. 
 
 fia 17— Sections of the skulls of Man and varioua 
 Apes, drawn so as to give the cerebral cavity the same
 
 110 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 length in each case, thereby displaying the varying pro- 
 portions 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 ten- 
 torium is attached posteriorly, indicates the degree to 
 which the cerebrum overlaps the cerebellum — the space 
 occupied by which is roughly indicated by the dark shad- 
 ing. In comparing these diagrams, it must be recollected, 
 that figures on so small a scale as these simply exemplify 
 the statements in the text, the proof of which is to be 
 found in the objects themselves. 
 
 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 
 completely 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 distinc- 
 tion on such a character, the same group of Platy- 
 rhine, 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. 
 
 Again, the Orang's skull is as devoid of exces- 
 sively developed supraciliary prominences as a 
 Man's, though some varieties exhibit great crests 
 elsewhere (See p. 25); and in some of the Cebine 
 apes and in the Chrysothrix, the cranium is as 
 smooth and rounded as that of Man himself.
 
 n TEETH: MEN AND APES. HI 
 
 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 be- 
 tween the Gorilla and some other Apes. 
 
 In connection with the skull, I may speak of 
 the teeth — organs which have a peculiar classifi- 
 catory value, and whose resemblances and differ- 
 ences 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- 
 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 uj)per jaw, smaller 
 than the external pair, in the lower jaw. The
 
 112 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 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 m^). The an- 
 terior 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 Go- 
 rilla may be described in the same terms as that of 
 Man; but in other matters it exhibits many and 
 important 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 Anoplotheri- 
 um. 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 and the front false 
 molar, in the 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 
 BO 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
 
 Man. 
 
 / '^'- ni2 m^ 
 
 Cynccephalus. htn, i 
 
 m-» 
 
 TTl^ 
 
 X2 
 
 Tib 
 
 Cheircmifs. 
 
 Fig. 18.— Lateral views, of the same length, of the 
 upper jaws of^ various Primates, i, incisors; c, canines;
 
 114 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 pm, premolars; m, molars. A line is drawn through the 
 first molar of Man, Gorilla, Cynocephalus, and Cebu9, 
 and the grinding surface of the second molar is shown in 
 each, its anterior and internal angle being just above the 
 tn of m^ 
 
 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 
 permanent teeth is different; the permanent ca- 
 nines 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 Cynocephalus, 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 
 various respects in which it differs from Man 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
 
 n MAN AND APES: TEETH. US 
 
 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 Cehus, 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 dif- 
 ferent, for they have four more false molars, 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 com- 
 pletely and essentially different from that of the
 
 116 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 Gorilla. The incisors begin to vary both in num- 
 ber and in form. The molars acquire, more and 
 more, a many-pointed, insectivorous character, and 
 in one Genus, the Aye- Aye (Cheiromys), the ca- 
 nines disappear, and the teeth completely simulate 
 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 se- 
 lected for comparison — the result would be the 
 same — the lower Apes and the Gorilla would dif- 
 fer 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 char- 
 acters of the hand, the foot, and the brain. 
 
 Man has been defined as the only animal pos- 
 sessed 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
 
 II MAN AND APES: HAND AND BRAIN. 117 
 
 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 reas- 
 serted, 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 — in- 
 deed, 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 de- 
 liberate and reiterated assertions must have some 
 foundation. 
 
 Before we can discuss the first point with ad- 
 vantage 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 famil- 
 iar enough to every one. It consists of a stout
 
 118 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 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 pos- 
 sibility of our carrying into effect the conceptions 
 of the mind so largely depends. 
 
 The external form of the foot differs widely 
 from that of the hand; and yet, when closely com- 
 pared, the two present some singular resemblances. 
 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 pro-
 
 n MAN AND APES: HAND AND FOOT. 119 
 
 portion than the digits of the hand, and are less 
 moveable, the want of mobility being most strik- 
 ing in the great toe — which, again, is very much 
 larger in proportion to the other toes than the 
 thumb to the fingers. In considering this point, 
 however, it must not be forgotten that the civilized 
 great toe, confined and cramped from childhood 
 upwards, is seen to a great disadvantage, 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). 
 
 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 polyg- 
 onal 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.
 
 ILancl. 
 
 Foot. 
 
 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. I'he 
 line a n in the hand indicates the boundary between the 
 carpus and the metacarpus; hh that between the latter 
 and the proximal phalanges; cc marks the ends of the 
 distal phalanges. The line a' a' in the foot indicates the 
 boundaiy between the tarsus and metatarsus; ft' ft' marks 
 that betw"^n the metatarsus and the proximal phalanges; 
 and c' c' bounds the ends of the distal phalanges; ca, the 
 calcaneum; as, the astragalus; sc, the scaphoid bone in 
 the tarsus.
 
 n MAN AND APES: HAND AND FOOT. 121 
 
 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 sec- 
 ond 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 metatarsal 
 is far less moveably articulated with the tarsus 
 than the metacarpal of the thumb with the car- 
 pus. 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 externally, and 
 sends back the large projecting heel; another, the
 
 122 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. ll 
 
 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 metacar- 
 pals 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 "flex- 
 ors," bend the fingers and thumb, as in clench- 
 ing the fist, and three sets, — the extensors — ex- 
 tend them, as in straightening the fingers. These 
 muscles are all "long muscles"; that it to say, 
 the fleshy part of each, lying in and being fixed to 
 the bones of the arm, is, at the other end, con- 
 tinued 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 fin- 
 gers 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.
 
 ■ MAN AND APES: HAND AND FOOT. 123 
 
 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 dis- 
 tinct from one another, as the flexors in the palm 
 of the hand do, but they become united and com- 
 mingled in a very curious manner — while their 
 united tendons receive an accessory muscle con- 
 nected with the heel-bone. 
 
 But perhaps the most absolutely distinctive 
 character about the muscles of the foot is the 
 existence 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, be- 
 hind 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
 
 124 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 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 ter- 
 minal 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 
 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
 
 u THE PREHENSILE FOOT. 125 
 
 of the Gorilla looks very hand-like, and as it is still 
 more so in many of the lower apes, it is not won- 
 derful that the appellation " Quadrumana," or 
 four-handed creatures, adopted from the older 
 anatomists * 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 
 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 pro- 
 portionally longer and more slender, while the 
 great toe is not only proportionally shorter and 
 
 • In speaking of the foot of his " Pygmie," Tyson re- 
 marks, p. 13: — 
 
 "But this part in the formation and in its function 
 too, being liker a Hand than a Foot: for the distinguish- 
 ing this sort of animals from others, I have thought 
 whether it might not be reckoned and called rather Quad- 
 ru-manus than Quadrupes, i. e. a four-handed rather than 
 a four-footed animal." 
 
 As this passage was published in 1699, M. I. G. St. 
 Hilaire is clearly in error in ascribing the invention of the 
 term " quadrumanous " to Buffon, though " bimanous " 
 may belong to him. Tyson uses " Quadrumanus " in 
 several places, as at p. 91. . . . "Our Pyijmie is no Man, 
 nor yet the common Ape, but a sort of Animal between 
 both; and though a Biped, yet of the Quadrmnanus-kind: 
 though some Mc7i too have been observed to use their 
 Feet like Hands as I have seen several."
 
 126 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 weaker, but its metatarsal bone is united by a 
 more moveable joint with the tarsus. At the same 
 time, the foot is set inore obliquely upon the leg 
 than in man. 
 
 As to the muscles, there is a short flexor, a 
 short extensor, and a peronoeus longus, while the 
 tendons of the long flexors of the great toe and of 
 the other toes are united together and with an ac- 
 cessory 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 
 thrown wholly on the leg and foot, is an advance 
 in organization of very great moment to him; but, 
 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 dif- 
 ferences.
 
 n APES: HAND AND FOOT. 127 
 
 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 mus- 
 cle. The carpus of the Orang, like that of most 
 lower apes, contains nine bones, while in the Go- 
 rilla, 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 
 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 
 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
 
 128 MAN ANT) THE LOWER ANIMALS. 
 
 u 
 
 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 eases, there can 
 
 ea. 
 
 Fig. 20. — Foot of Man. Oorilln. nnd Orang-Utan of the 
 same absolute length, to show t'e ('ifFerences in propor- 
 tion of each. T.etters as in Finf. 1^. Reduced from original 
 dra^\ing3 by Mr. Waterhoiise Hawkins. 
 
 be no doubt but that the hand is more different 
 from that of the Gorilla than the Gorilla's hand 
 is from Man's.
 
 n APES: HAND AND FOOT. 12^ 
 
 And as to the foot, the great toe of the Mar- 
 moset 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 spe- 
 cies 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, some- 
 times very complex, arrangements of the same 
 parts, and occasionally in the absence of the acces- 
 sory 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 
 173
 
 130 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 muscle, and a peroncBus longus. Varied as the pro- 
 portions 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 
 conclusion 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. 
 
 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
 
 n VERTEBRATA: BRAINS. 131 
 
 masses of all. In Eeptiles, 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 Mam- 
 mals, such as the duck-billed Platypus and the 
 Opossums and Kangaroos, exhibits a still more 
 definite advance in the same direction. The cere- 
 bral 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, Eeptile, or Fish. A 
 step higher in the scale, among the placental Mam- 
 mals, 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 hemi- 
 spheres, connecting them together, at what is 
 called the " great commissure " or " corpus cal- 
 losum." The subject requires careful re-investi- 
 gation, but if the currently received statements 
 are correct, the appearance of the " corpus cal- 
 losum " in the placental mammals is the greatest 
 and most sudden modification 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
 
 132 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 being once thus knit together, the progress of 
 cerebral complexity is traceable through a com- 
 plete series of steps from the lowest Rodent, or 
 Insectivore, to Man; and that complexity consists, 
 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 cerebral 
 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. 136) from the an- 
 terior face of the cerebellum, inclines backwards 
 and downwards, and grows out, as the so-called 
 " posterior lobe," so as at length to overlap and 
 hide 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- 
 sphere, it is said to have two horns or " cornua," 
 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
 
 n MAMMALIA: BRAINS. 133 
 
 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 this 
 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-
 
 134 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. u 
 
 tween man and the apes, Nature has provided us, 
 in the latter animals, with an almost complete 
 series of gradations from hrains little higher than 
 that of a Kodent, 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 cerebellum 
 partially visible from above, and its posterior lobe, 
 with the contained posterior cornu and hippo- 
 campus 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 posterior 
 cornu, with a well-developed hippocampus minor. 
 
 In many of these creatures, such as the Saimiri 
 (Chrysothrix), the cerebral lobes overlap and ex- 
 tend much further behind the cerebellum, in pro- 
 portion, 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 mon- 
 key. For, inasmuch as the brain in all mammals
 
 n THE POSTERIOR LOBES. 135 
 
 completely fills the cranial cavity, it is obvious 
 that a cast of the interior of the skull will repro- 
 duce 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 cerebel- 
 lum 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 suppose 
 that the cerebellum of an ape is naturally uncov- 
 ered behind is a miscomprehension comparable 
 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 sec-
 
 B 
 
 OTiimp tx.-nzee. 
 
 '^> 
 
 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. Cere- 
 bellum. The former drawing is taken from a cast in the 
 Musetim of the Roval 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
 
 u THE POSTERIOR LOBES. 137 
 
 the Chimpanzee " in the 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. 
 
 tion 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 iij 
 the human skull — which indicates the line of at- 
 tachment 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 
 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 Simiae, with one exception, when 
 the face is directed forwards, this line of attach- 
 ment 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.
 
 138 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 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 pos- 
 terior 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 con- 
 tent myself with assuring the reader that the pos- 
 terior cornu and the hippocampus minor, have now 
 been seen — usually, at least as well developed as in 
 man, and often better — not only in the Chimpan- 
 zee, the Orang, and the Gibbon, but in all the gen- 
 era of the old world baboons and monkeys, and in 
 most of the new world forms, including the Mar- 
 mosets. 
 
 In fact, all the abundant and trustworthy evi- 
 dence (consisting of the results of careful inves-
 
 n PATTERN OF CONVOLUTIONS. 139 
 
 tigations 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 dis- 
 tinctly Simian peculiarities which the human or- 
 ganism 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 skeleton 
 map of man's, and in the man-hke 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 fis- 
 sures usually absent in man, and the different dis- 
 position and proportions of some convolutions, that 
 the. Chimpanzee's or the Orang's brain can be 
 structurally distinguished from Man's.
 
 14:0 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 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 Mon- 
 keys, and that the difference between the brains 
 of the Chimpanzee and of Man is almost insig- 
 nificant, 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 explana- 
 tion of the great gulf which intervenes between the 
 lowest man and the highest ape in intellectual 
 power; * but it has little systematic value, for the 
 
 * I say help to furnish : for I by no means believe that 
 it was any original diiTerence of cerebral quality, or quan- 
 tity, 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 structure; or, in other words, of 
 difference in the combination of the primary molecular 
 forces of living substance; and, starting from this unde-
 
 ChimpartJiee. a- 
 
 FiQ. 22. — Drawing of the cerebral hemisphereg 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. c, posterior lobe; ft, 
 lateral ventricle; c, posterior cornu; x, the hippocampus 
 minor. 
 
 simple reason that, as may be concluded from what 
 has been already said respecting cranial capacity, 
 
 niable axiom, objectors occasionally, and with much seem- 
 ing plausibility, argue that the vast intellectual chasm 
 between the Ape and Man implies a corresponding struc- 
 tural chasm in the organs of the intellectual functions; 
 so that, it is said, the non-discovery of such vast differ- 
 ences 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 or- 
 gans of the senses and the motor apparatuses, especially 
 those which are concerned in prehension and in the pro- 
 duction 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 Orang or a Chimpanzee, if he were confined to 
 thf 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 innerva- 
 tion of these parts; or it might result from congenital 
 deafness, caused by some minute defect of the internal 
 ear, which only a careful anatomist could discover. 
 
 The argument, that because there is an immense dif- 
 ference between a Man's intelligence and an Ape's, there- 
 fore, 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
 
 n WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN. 143 
 
 the difference in weight of brain between the 
 highest and the lowest men is far greater, both 
 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 38 : 20 rela- 
 tively; but as the largest recorded human brain 
 weighed between 65 and 66 ounces, the former dif- 
 ference is represented by more than 33 ounces abso- 
 lutely, or by 65 : 32 relatively. Regarded system- 
 atically, the cerebral differences of man and apes, 
 are not of more than generic value; his Family 
 distinction resting chiefly on his dentition, his pel- 
 vis, 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 
 
 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 bend 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 
 diflference. 
 
 And believing, as T 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 incon- 
 spicuous structural difference may have been the primary 
 cause of the immeasurable and practically infinite diver- 
 gence of the Human from the Simian Stirps.
 
 144 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 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 phraseology 
 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 oppor- 
 tunity then of distinctly asserting, on the contrary, 
 that they are great and significant; that every bone 
 of a Gorilla bears marks by which it might be dis- 
 tinguished from the corresponding 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 its 
 existence, to refuse to inquire whether it is wide 
 or narrow. Eemember, 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
 
 n KAN ONE OF THE PRIMATES. I45 
 
 Btructural 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 famihes of the same order, there 
 can be no justification for placing him in a dis- 
 tinct order. 
 
 And thus the sagacious foresight of the great 
 lawgiver of systematic zoology, Linnagus, 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 Anthbopini, contains Man alone; the 
 second, the Catarhini, embraces the old world 
 apes; the third, the Plattrhini, all new world 
 apes, except the Marmosets; the fourth, the 
 Arctopithecini, contains the Marmosets; the 
 fifth, the Lemurini, the Lemurs — from which 
 Cheiromys should probably be excluded to form a 
 sixth distinct family, the Cheiromyini; while the 
 seventh, the Galeopithecini, contains only the 
 flying Lemur Galeopithecus, — a strange form which 
 almost touches on the Bats, as the Cheiromys puts> 
 on a Rodent clothing, and the Lemurs simulate 
 Insectivora. 
 
 Perhaps no order of mammals presents us with 
 80 extraordinary a series of gradations as thii — 
 174
 
 146 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 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 low- 
 est, smallest, and least intelligent of the placental 
 Mammalia. It is as if nature herself had fore- 
 seen the arrogance of man, and with Eoman 
 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 wliich I adverted in the 
 commencement of this Essay. The facts, I be- 
 lieve, cannot be disputed; and if so, the conclusion 
 appears to me to be inevitable. 
 
 But if Man be separated by no greater struc- 
 tural 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 
 amply sufficient to account for the origin of Man. 
 In other words, if it could be shown that the Mar- 
 mosets, for example, have arisen by gradual modi- 
 fication of the ordinary Platyrhini, or that both 
 Marmosets and Platyrhini are modified rami- 
 fications 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
 
 a THE ORIGIN OF MAN. I4r7 
 
 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 fa- 
 vour; or, in other words, there is but one hypoth- 
 esis regarding the origin of species of animals 
 in general which has any scientific existence 
 —that propounded by Mr. Darwin. For La- 
 marck, 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 eifected, 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-qua-versal proposition of this kind, which 
 may be read backwards, or forwards, or side- 
 ways, with exactly the same amount of significa- 
 tion, does not really exist, though it may seem to 
 
 do so. 
 
 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.
 
 X48 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 It cannot be doubted, I think, that Mr. Dar- 
 win 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 liv- 
 ing 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 
 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.
 
 n DARWIN'S HYPOTHESIS. 149 
 
 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 De- 
 velopment, of Comparative Anatomy, of Geo- 
 graphical Distribution, and of Palasontology, be- 
 come 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 approxima- 
 tion 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 
 60 long as all the animals and plants certainly pro- 
 duced 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 com- 
 petent to do all that is required of it to produce 
 natural species. 
 
 I have put this conclusion as strongly as 
 possible before the reader, because the last posi- 
 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
 
 150 MAN AND THE LOWER ANBIALS. if 
 
 admitted that the conditions of fertility and steril- 
 ity 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 importance, when 
 set against the multitude of facts which harmonize 
 with, or receive an explanation from, his doc- 
 trines. 
 
 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 undu- 
 latory theory of Hght, subject to the proof of the 
 existence of the hypothetical ether; or as the chem- 
 ist 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 probabiHty: 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 investigation which 
 has been presented to naturahsts since the inven- 
 tion of the natural system of classification, and 
 the commencement of the systematic study of 
 embryology. 
 
 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-
 
 OBJECTIONS: SENTIMENTAL AND OTHER. 151 
 
 tions between Man and the rest of the living 
 world, and between the forces exerted by the lat- 
 ter 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 or- 
 ganic — 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 in- 
 clinations. 
 
 But, desiring, as I do, to reach the wider circle 
 of the intelligent pubhc, 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 
 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 conscience 
 of good and evil — the pitiful tenderness of human 
 affections, raise us out of all real fellowship with
 
 152 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS, n 
 
 the brutes, however closely they may seem to ap- 
 proximate us." 
 
 To this I can only reply that the exclamation 
 would he 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 en- 
 deavoured to show that no absolute structural line 
 of demarcation, wider than that between the ani- 
 mals which immediately succeed us in the scale, 
 can be drawn between the animal world and our- 
 selves; and I may add the expression of my belief 
 that the attempt to draw a psychical distinction 
 is equally futile, and that even the highest facul- 
 ties of feeling and of intellect begin to germinate 
 in lower forms of life.* At the same time, no one 
 is more strongly convinced than I am of the vast- 
 ness of the gulf between civilised 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 likely of the present 
 dignity, or despairingly of the future hopes, 
 
 * It is so rare a pleasure for me to find Professor 
 Owen's opinions in entire accordance with my own, that I 
 cannot forbear from quoting a paragraph which appeared 
 in his Essav " On the Characters, &c., of the Class Mam- 
 malia," 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, which is otherwise nearly 
 a reprint of the paper in question. Prof. Owen irritee:
 
 n OBJECTIONS. 153 
 
 of the only consciously intelligent denizen of this 
 world. 
 
 - We are indeed told by those who assume author- 
 ity 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 brutaliza- 
 tion and degradation of the former. But is this 
 really so? Could not a sensible cliild confute by 
 obvious arguments, the shallow rhetoricians who 
 would force this conclusion upon us? Is it, in- 
 deed, true, that the Poet, or the Philosopher, or 
 the Artist whose genius is the glory of his age, 
 is degraded from his high estate by the undoubted 
 historical probability, not to say certainty, 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 
 
 " Not being able to appreciate or conceive of the dis- 
 tinction between the psychical phenomena of a Chimpan- 
 zee and of a Eoschisman or of an Aztec, ^vith arrested 
 brain growth, as being of a nature so essential as to pre- 
 clude a comparison between them, or as being other than 
 a difference of degree, I cannot shut my eyes to the sig- 
 nificance of that all-pers'ading similitude of structure — 
 every tooth, every bone, strictly homologous — which 
 makes the determination of the difference between Homo 
 and Pithecvs the anatomist's difficulty." 
 
 Surely it is a little singular, that the " anatomist," 
 who finds it " difficult " to determine " the difference " be- 
 tween Homo and Pithecus, should yet range them on 
 anatomical grounds, in distinct sub-classes.
 
 154: MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 the wholly unquestionable fact, that he was once 
 an egg, which no ordinal}- power of discrimination 
 could distinguish from that of a Dog? Or is the 
 philanthropist, or the saint, to give up his en- 
 deavours 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 pos- 
 sess 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 degrada- 
 tion, will leave the brooding over speculative 
 pollution to the cynics and the " righteous over- 
 much " who, disagreeing in everything else, 
 unite in blind insensibility to the nobleness 
 of the visible world, and in inabiUty to appre- 
 ciate the grandeur of the place Man occupies 
 therein. 
 
 Nay more, thoiightful men, once escaped from 
 the Winding influences of traditional prejudice, 
 will find in the lowly stock whence Man has 
 sprung, the best evidence of the splendour of his 
 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 civihsed 
 man with the animal world, one is as the Alpine
 
 n 
 
 OBJECTIONS. 155 
 
 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 re- 
 fuses 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 
 subterranean 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 rever- 
 ence and our wonder, adds all the force of intel- 
 lectual sublimity to the mere aesthetic intuition of 
 the uninstructed beholder. 
 
 ~A.nd 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 struc- 
 ture, one with the brutes; for, he alone possesses 
 the marvellous endowment of intelligible and 
 rational speech, whereby, in the secular period 
 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
 
 156 MAN AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. n 
 
 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 •f 
 truth.
 
 III. 
 
 ON SOME FOSSIL REMAINS OF MAN. 
 
 I HAVE endeavoured to show, in the preceding 
 Essay, that the Anthropini, or Man Family, form 
 a rery 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 pres- 
 ent stands, it is an overstatement of the real facts 
 of the case, and an exaggeration of the conclusions 
 fairly deducible from them, are points of grave im- 
 portance, but into the discussion of which I do not, 
 
 157
 
 158 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 
 
 at present, propose to enter. It is enough that 
 such a view of the relations of extinct to Hving 
 beings lias been propounded, to lead us to inquire, 
 with anxiety, how far the recent discoveries of 
 human remains in a fossil state bear out, or oppose, 
 that view. 
 
 I shall confine myself, in discussing this ques- 
 tion, to those fragmentary Human skulls from the 
 caves of Engis in the valley of the Mouse, in Bel- 
 gium, and of the Neanderthal, near Diisseldorf, 
 the geological relations of which have been ex- 
 amined 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 con- 
 temporary of the Mammoth {Elephas primigenius) 
 and of the woolly Ehinoceros (Rhinoceros ticlior- 
 hinus), with the bones of which it was found asso- 
 ciated; 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 geo- 
 logical epoch from that which immediately pre- 
 ceded it. And there can be no doubt that the 
 physical geography of Europe has changed won- 
 derfully, since the bones of Men and Mammoths, 
 Hyaenas and Rhinoceroses were washed pell-mell 
 into the cave of Engis.
 
 m 
 
 THE MAN OF ENGIS. 
 
 159 
 
 The skull from the cave of Engis was originally 
 discovered by Professor Schmerling, and was de* 
 scribed by him, together with other human re- 
 
 Fig. 23. — The skull from the cave of Engis — viewed 
 from the riorht side. One half the size of nature, a gla- 
 bella, 6 occipital protuberance (a to 6 glabello-occipital 
 line), c auditory foramen. 
 
 mains disinterred at the same time, in his valuable 
 work, " Recherches sur les Ossemens fossiles decou- 
 verts dans les Cavernes de la Province de Liege/*
 
 160 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 
 
 published in 1833 (p. 59, et seq.), from which the 
 following paragraphs are extracted, the precise ex- 
 pressions 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 dis- 
 interring, 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 frequently 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 re-^ 
 cent bones, with the exception of those which have a cal- 
 careous 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 be- 
 ginning to be 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 de- 
 tached before the skiill was deposited in the cave, for we 
 w^ere 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, composed 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 J 
 feet about] wide, and rose to the height of a metre and a 
 half above the floor of the cavern, to the walla of which it. 
 adhered strongly.
 
 ra THE ENGIS SKULL. 161 
 
 " The earth which contained this human skull ex- 
 hibited no trace of disturbance : teeth of rhinoceros, horse, 
 hyaena, and bear, surrounded it on all sides. 
 
 " The famous Blumenbach * has directed attention to 
 the differences presented by the form and the dimensions 
 of human crania of diflferent races. This important work 
 would have assisted us greatly, if the face, a part essen- 
 tial for the determination of race, with more or less ac- 
 curacy, 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 at- 
 tracted our attention. 
 
 " In fact, the slight elevation of the frontal, its narrow- 
 ness, 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 contours of the cranium of an 
 European and of an Ethiopian to be drawn and the fore- 
 heads represented. Plate II, Figs. 1 and 2, and, in the 
 same plate. Figs. 3 and 4, will render the diflferences easily 
 distinguishable; and a single glance at the figures will 
 be more instructive than a long and wearisome descrip- 
 tion. 
 
 • Decas Collectionis suw cranwrum diversamm gen- 
 tium illustrata.—Gottmgsi, 1790-1820. 
 
 175
 
 162 HUMAN FOSSILS. in 
 
 " 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 probable: for my own part, I 
 hold it to be demonstrated that this cranium has belonged 
 to a person of limited intellectual faculties, and we con- 
 clude thence that it belonged to a man of a low degree 
 of civilization: a deduction which is borne out by con- 
 trasting the capacity of the frontal with that of the oc- 
 cipital region. 
 
 " Another cranium of a young individual was discov- 
 ered in the floor of the cavern beside the tooth of an ele- 
 phant ; 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 frag- 
 ments 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.* 
 
 " Figure 4 is a fragment of a superior maxillary bone, 
 the molar teeth of which are worn down to the roots. 
 
 " I possess two vertebrse, 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.f 
 
 " Two fragments of the radius, badly preserved, do not 
 
 * In a subsequent passage, Schmevling remarks upon 
 the occurrence of an incisor tooth " of enormous size " 
 from the caverns of Engihoul. The tooth figured is some- 
 what long, but its dimensions do not appear to me to 
 be otherwise remarkable. 
 
 t 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.
 
 m THE ENGIS SKULL. 163 
 
 indicate that the height of the man, to whom they be- 
 longed, exceeded five feet and a half. 
 
 " As to the remains of the upper extremities, those 
 which are in my possession consist merely of a frag- 
 ment 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 dis- 
 tances, half-a-dozen metatarsals, three phalanges of the 
 hand, and one of the foot. 
 
 " This is a brief enumeration of the remains of human 
 bones collected in the cavern of Engis, which has pre- 
 served for us the remains of three individuals, surrounded 
 by those of the Elephant, of the Rhinoceros, and of Car- 
 nivora of species unknown in the present creation." 
 
 From the cave of Engihoul, opposite that of 
 Engis, on the right bank of the Meuse, Sehmerling 
 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 
 Sehmerling 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
 
 164 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 
 
 all those Belgian caves, which contained an abun- 
 dance of fossil bones. 
 
 A short letter from M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, 
 published in the " Comptes Rendus " of the Acad- 
 emy 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 presumably a misprint for Schmerling) at Liege. 
 The writer briefly criticises the drawings which 
 illustrate Schmerling's work, and affirms that the 
 " human cranium is a little longer than it is repre- 
 sented " in Schmerling's figure. The only other 
 remark worth quoting is this: — 
 
 " The aspect of the human 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 dif- 
 ferences exist between the different specimens of well- 
 characterized varieties, than between the fossil cranium 
 of Li^ge and that of one of those varieties selected as a 
 term of comparison." 
 
 Geoffroy St. Hilaire's remarks are, it will be 
 observed, little but an echo of the philosophic 
 doubts of the describer and discoverer of the re- 
 mains. As to the critique upon Schmerling's fig- 
 ures, I find that the side view given by the latter 
 is really about ^^ths of an inch shorter than the 
 original, and that the front view is diminished to
 
 m THE ENGIS SKULL. 165 
 
 about the same extent. Otherwise the representa- 
 tion 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 
 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 en- 
 tirely absent; but the roof of the cranium, consist- 
 ing of the frontal, parietal, and the greater part 
 of the occipital bones, as far as the middle of the 
 occipital 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.
 
 Fig. 24.— The Engis skull viewed from above (A) and in 
 
 front (B).
 
 in THE ENGIS SKULL. 167 
 
 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 condi- 
 tion 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 
 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. 33), to the occipital protuberance (h), 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 toler- 
 ably 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 pari- 
 etal protuberances, than above them. The fore- 
 head cannot be called narrow in relation to the rest
 
 168 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 
 
 of the skull, nor can it be called a retreating fore- 
 head; on the contrary, the antero-posterior con- 
 tour of the skull is well arched, so that the dis- 
 tance along that contour, from the nasal depres- 
 sion 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-ridges 
 (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 ^V^h 
 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
 
 m 
 
 THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 169 
 
 the words of their original describer. Dr. SchaafE- 
 hausen,* 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 Dusseldorf 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 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.t Subsequently Dr. 
 Fuhlrott, to whom science is indebted for the preservation 
 of these bones, which w-ere 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 Prus- 
 sian Rhineland and Westphalia, at Bonn, on the 2nd of 
 June, 1857,$ Dr. Fuhlrott himself gave a full account of 
 the locality, anrl 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 conclu- 
 sion, 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 examination of the bones. The conclu- 
 
 ♦ On tlie Crania of the most Ancient Races of Man. — 
 By Professor D. Schaaflfhausen, of Bonn. (From Muller's 
 Archiv., 1858, p. 453.) With Remarks, and original Fig- 
 ures, taken from a Cast of the Neanderthal Cranium. By 
 George Busk, F.R.S., &c. Natural History Review, April, 
 1861. 
 
 t Vcrhandl. d. Naturhist. Tereins der preuss. Rhein- 
 lande und Westphalens., xiv. — Bonn, 1857. 
 
 X lb. Correspondenzblatt. No. 2,
 
 170 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 
 
 sions at which I arrived were: 1st. That the extraordinary 
 form of the skull was due to a natural conformation hith- 
 erto 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 cir- 
 cumstances 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 to admit a man, and about 15 feet deep from 
 the entrance, which is 7 or 8 feet wide, exists in the south- 
 ern wall of the gorge of the Neanderthal, as it is termed, 
 at a distance of about 100 feet from the Diissel, 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 un- 
 even floor was covered to a thickness of 4 or 5 feet with » 
 deposit of mud, sparingly intermixed vidth rounded frag- 
 ments of chert. In the remo\ing of this deposit, the bones 
 were discovered. The skull was first noticed, placed near- 
 est 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 la- 
 bourers 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
 
 Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 171 
 
 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 frag- 
 ments 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-ellipti- 
 cal form. A most remarkable peculiarity is at once obvi- 
 ous in the extraordinary development of the frontal si- 
 nuses, owing to which the superciliary ridges, which coal- 
 esce 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 de- 
 pression 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 orbits and the superior occipital ridges, which 
 are greatly developed, 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 re- 
 cently fractured surfaces show that the skull was broken 
 at the time of its disinterment. The cavity holds 16,876 
 grains of water, whence its cubical contents may be esti- 
 mated 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 deep- 
 est notch in the squamous margin of the parietal, and 
 with the superior semicircular ridges of the occipital. 
 Estimated in dried millet-seed, the contents equalled 31 
 ounces, Prussian Apothecaries' weight. The semicircular
 
 172 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 
 
 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 observ- 
 able an oblique furrow or depression, indicative of an in- 
 jury received during life.* The coronal and sagittal su- 
 tures are on the exterior nearly closed, and on the inside bo 
 completely ossified as to have left no traces whatever, whilst 
 the lambdoidal remains quite open. The depressions for 
 the Pacchionian 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 emissaria. 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.t inches. 
 
 The length of the skull from the 
 nasal process of the frontal over 
 the vertex to the superior semi- 
 circular lines of the occipital 
 measures 303 (300) = 12.0'. 
 
 Circumference over the orbital 
 ridges and the superior semicir- 
 cular lines of the occipital ... 590 (590) = 23.37' or 23'. 
 
 Width of the frontal from the mid- 
 dle of the temporal line on one 
 side to the same point on the op- 
 posite 104 (114) = 4.1'- 4.5*. 
 
 * This, Mr. Busk has pointed out, is probably the 
 notch for the frontal nerve. 
 
 t The numbers in parentheses are those which I should 
 assign to the different measures, as taken from the plaster 
 cast. — G. B.
 
 tn THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 173 
 
 mm. incbss. 
 
 Length of the frontal from the 
 nasal process to the coronal su- 
 ture 133(125)=:5.35'-5'. 
 
 Extreme width of the frontal si- 
 nuses • 25(33) = 1.0'-0.9'. 
 
 Vertical height above a line join- 
 ing the deepest notches in the 
 squamous border of the parietals 70 = 2.75'. 
 
 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 
 semicircular lines 51 (60) = 1.9'— 2.4 . 
 
 Thickness of the bone at the parie- 
 tal protuberance 8- 
 
 at the angle of the occipital 9. 
 
 at the superior semicircular 
 
 line of the occipital 10 = 0.3 . 
 
 " Besides the cranium, the following bonea have been 
 
 secured: — 
 
 " 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, al- 
 though they are ihorter. 
 
 Giant's bones. Fossil bones, 
 mm. inches. mm. inches. 
 
 Length 542 = 21.4' ... 438 = 17.4J. 
 
 Diameter of head of femur 54 = 2.14' ... 53 = 2.0'. 
 Diameter of lower articular end, 
 from one condyle to the 
 
 other 89 = 3.5' ...87 = 3.4*. 
 
 Diameter of femur in the middU . 33 = 1.3' ... 30 = 1.1'.
 
 174 HUMAN FOSSILS. ra 
 
 "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 = 1.0". 
 Diameter of head .... 49 = 1.9". 
 
 " Also a perfect right radius of corresponding dimen- 
 sions and the upper-third of a right ulna corresponding 
 to the humerus and radius. 
 
 " 3. A left humerus, of which the upper-third is want- 
 ing, and which is so much slenderer than the right as ap- 
 parently 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 ole- 
 cranon is curved strongly downwards. As the bone pre- 
 sents no sign of rachitic degeneration, it may be sup- 
 posed 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 articu- 
 lation with a corresponding radius. But it is clear that 
 this shortening, as well as the attenuation of the left hu- 
 merus, 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 ex- 
 tremity of a rib 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 hinder portions and one middle por- 
 tion of ribs which, from their unusually rounded shape, 
 and abrupt curvature, more resemble the ribs of a car-
 
 m 
 
 THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 175 
 
 nivorous animal than those of a man. Dr. H. v. Meyer, 
 however, to whose judgment I defer, will not venture to 
 declare them to be ribs of any animal; and it only re- 
 mains to suppose that this abnormal condition has arisen 
 from an unusually 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 undergone 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 lens, 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 ferrugi- 
 nous compound, and, from their black colour, may be sup- 
 posed to contain manganese. Similar dendritic forma- 
 tions 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 crystal- 
 lizations on several fossil bones of animals, and particu- 
 larly on those of Urstts spelccus, but still more abun- 
 dantly and beautifully displayed on the fossil bones and 
 teeth of Equiis adamlticus, Elephas primigenins, &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.* I 
 am indebted to H. v. Meyer for the following remarks on 
 this subject: — 
 
 * \erh. des Naturhist, Vereins in Bonn, xiv. 1857.
 
 176 HUMAN FOSSILS. ra 
 
 " ' The incipient formation of dendritic deposits, which 
 were formerly regarded as a sign of a truly fossil condi- 
 tion, is interesting. It has even been supposed that in 
 diluvial deposits the presence of dendrites might be re- 
 garded 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 dendrites 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, den- 
 dritic 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 Hadrianutn, 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 meet- 
 ing 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 determining 
 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 
 representing 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 co- 
 existed with the animals found in the diluvium; and many 
 a barbarous race may, before all historical time, have dis- 
 appeared, together with the animals of the ancient world, 
 whilst the races whose organization is improved have con-
 
 in THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 177 
 
 tinued 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 been met with in the caves of the Neanderthal; 
 and that the bones, which were covered by a deposit of 
 mud 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 
 probability of a geological antiquity. Nor should we be 
 justified in regarding the cranial conformation as perhaps 
 representing the 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 in- 
 stance in the greater depth of the temporal fossae, the 
 crest-like, prominent temporal ridges, and a generally less 
 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 occi- 
 put, whilst, according to Morton, in the Flat-heads of the 
 Columbia, the frontal and parietal bones are always un- 
 symmetrical. Its conformation exhibits the sparing de- 
 velopment of the anterior part of the head which has 
 been so often observe<i 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 re- 
 marks:
 
 178 HUMAN FOSSILS. in 
 
 " There is no reason whatever for regarding the un- 
 usual development of the frontal sinuses in the remark- 
 able 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 proportions. 
 This expansion of the frontal sinuses, which are append- 
 ages 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 be- 
 come 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 promi- 
 nent 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 hori- 
 zontal 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 promi- 
 nent supra-orbital ridges, the facial angle is not found to 
 exceed 56°.* Unfortunately, no portions of the facial 
 
 * Estimatinjr the facial angle in the wav suggested, on 
 the cast I should place it at 64° to 67°.— G. B.
 
 Ill THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 179 
 
 hones, whose conformation 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 cav- 
 ity should have about 6 ounces more added, the contents, 
 were it perfect, may be taken at 37 ounces. Tiederaann 
 assigns, as the cranial contents in the Negro, 40, 38, and 
 35 ounces. The cranium holds rather more than 36 ounces 
 of water which corresponds to a capacity of 1033.2-4 cubic 
 centimetres. Huschke estimates the cranial contents of 
 a Negress at 1127 cubic centimetres; of an old Negro at 
 1140 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 Neander- 
 thal exceed all the rest in those peculiarities of conforma- 
 tion 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 regarded 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 placing side by side with its out-
 
 180 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 
 
 line, that of the skull of a Chimpanzee, drawn to 
 the same absolute size. 
 
 Some time after the pubUcation of the trans- 
 lation of Professor Schaatfhausen's Memoir, I was 
 led to study the cast of the Neanderthal cranium 
 with more attention than I had pre^aously be- 
 stowed upon it, in consequence of wishing to sup- 
 ply Sir Charles Lyell with a diagram, exhibiting 
 the special pecuharities of this skull, as compared 
 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 an- 
 other, defined by the occipital protuberance and 
 superior semicircular line, and had placed the out- 
 line of the Neanderthal skull against that of the 
 Engis skull, in such a position that the glabella 
 and occipit-al 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 incHned to suspect 
 this. as. in ordinary human skulls, the occipital 
 protuberance and superior semicircular curved 
 line on the exterior of the occiput correspond 
 pretty closely u-ith the " lateral sinuses " and the 
 line of attachment of the tentorium internally. 
 But on the tentorium rests, as I have said in the
 
 m THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 181 
 
 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 
 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, the pos- 
 sessor of the skull, answers to certain queries, and 
 if possible a cast, or at any rate drawings, or photo- 
 graphs, of the interior of the skull. 
 
 Dr. Fuhlrott replied, with a courtesy and readi- 
 ness for which I am infinitely indebted to him, to 
 my inquiries, and furthermore sent three excellent 
 photographs. One of these gives a side 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. Fuhl- 
 rott writes, " a probe may be introduced to the 
 depth of an inch," and demonstrates the great 
 extension of the thickened supraciliary ridges be- 
 yond 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 si-
 
 182 
 
 HUMAN FOSSILS. 
 
 <n 
 
 Fig. 25.- — The skull from the Neanderthal cavern. A, 
 The outlines from camera lucida drawino^s, one half the 
 from Dr. Fuhlrott's photographs, a glabella; b occipital 
 
 nuses, 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
 
 m 
 
 THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 
 
 183 
 
 my interpretation, 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 
 
 side, B, front, and C, top view. One half the natural size, 
 natural size, by Mr. Busk: the details from the cast and 
 protuberance; d lambdoidal suture. 
 
 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.
 
 184 
 
 HUMAN FOSSILS. 
 
 m 
 
 measuring only about 3.4 inches from the glahello- 
 occipital line to the vertex. The longitudinal arc. 
 
 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). 
 
 measured in the same way as in the Engis skull, 
 is 13 inches; the transverse arc cannot be exactly
 
 ra THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 185 
 
 ascertained, in consequence of the absence of the 
 temporal bones, but was probably about the same, 
 and certainly exceeded 10:^ inches. The horizontal 
 circumference is 23 inches. But this great circum- 
 ference arises largely from the vast development 
 of the supraciliary ridges, though the perimeter 
 of the brain case itself is not small. The large 
 supraciliary ridges give the forehead a far more 
 retreating appearance than its internal contour 
 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 pos- 
 terior 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 obliquely 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 
 (4r| 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 extremi- 
 ties, but enlarging towards the middle, where it 
 forms two ridges (bourrelets), united by a linear 
 continuation, which is slightly depressed in the 
 middle."
 
 186 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 
 
 " Below the left ridge the bone exhibits an ob- 
 liquely 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 h. It is par- 
 ticularly interesting, as it suggests that, notwith- 
 standing 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.
 
 in THE NEANDERTHAL MAN. 187 
 
 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 skele- 
 ton varies in the proportions, and even to a certain 
 extent in the connections, of its constituent bones. 
 The muscles which move the bones vary largely 
 in their attachments. The varieties in the mode 
 of distribution of the arteries are carefully classi- 
 fied, 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 con- 
 volutions 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 posterior cornu of the lateral 
 ventricle, the hippocampus minor, and the degree 
 of projection of the posterior lobe beyond the cere- 
 bellum. Finally, as all the world knows, the hair 
 and skin of human beings may present the most 
 extraordinary diversities in colour and in texture. 
 
 So far as our present knowledge goes, the ma- 
 jority 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 with * in the white races of mankind, is 
 
 * See an excellent Essay by Jlr. Church on the Myology 
 of the Orang, in the Natural History Review for 1861.
 
 Fig. 27. — Side and front views of the round and or- 
 thognathous skull of a Calmuck after Von Baer. Oae- 
 third the natural elze.
 
 m VARIATIONS: HUMAN SKULL, 189 
 
 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, 
 and to be, so far, more ape-like than that of ordi- 
 nary Europeans, are we justified in concluding a 
 like condition of the brain to prevail universally 
 among the lower races of mankind, however prob- 
 able 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 meas- 
 uring 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 Eetzius 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
 
 190 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 
 
 skull; in the degree to which the upper jaw (which 
 is of course followed by the lower) is thrown back- 
 wards and downwards under the fore part of the 
 brain case, or forwards and upwards in front of 
 and beyond it. They differ further in the relations 
 of the transverse diameter of the face, taken 
 through the cheek bones, to the transverse diam- 
 eter 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.* 
 Men possessing such skulls were termed by 
 Eetzius " hr achy cephalic," and the skull of a 
 Calmuck, of which a front and side view (reduced 
 outline copies of which are given in Fig. 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 di- 
 ameter of the human skull may fall below even 
 
 • In no normal human skull does the breadth of the 
 brain case exceed its length.
 
 YiG 28— Oblong and prognathous skull of a Negro; 
 side and front views. One-third of the natural size.
 
 192 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 
 
 this proportion. People having such skulls were 
 called by Eetzius " dolichocephalic." 
 
 The most cursory glance at the side views of 
 these two skulls will suffice to prove that they 
 differ, in another respect, to a very striking ex- 
 tent. 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 " orthognathous " or straight-jawed; in 
 the latter, it is called " prognathous," a term which 
 has been rendered, with more force than elegance, 
 by the Saion 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 modifications 
 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 in- 
 volved 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 cir-
 
 m VARIATIONS: HUMAN SKULL. 193 
 
 cumstances, 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. 
 
 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 be- 
 fore its sides and roof; it is converted into cartilage 
 earlier and more completely than the sides and 
 roof: and the cartilaginous base ossifies, and be- 
 comes 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 h) 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 {b c) forms a 
 177
 
 Beflver. 
 
 Ltianr. 
 
 Fig. 29. — Longitudinal and vertical sections of the 
 skulls of a Beaver {Castor Canadensis), a Lemur (L. 
 Catta), and a Baboon {Ci/nocephahis Papio), ah, the 
 basicranial axis; h c, the occipital plane; i T, the tentorial 
 plane; ad. the olfactory plane; f e, the basifacial axis; 
 cba, occipital angle; ft a, tentorial angle; dab, olfac- 
 tory angle; e f h, craniofacial angle; g li, 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
 
 m MAMMALIAN SKULLS. 195 
 
 of the line g Jt to that of a ft taken as 100, in the three 
 skulls, is as 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 basicranial axis taken 
 as 100, in the Negro (Fig. 30) as 236 to 100. In the 
 Constantinople skull (Fig. 30) it is as 206 to 100. The 
 difference between the highest Ape's skull and the lowest 
 Man's is therefore very strikingly brought out by these 
 measurements. 
 
 In the diagram of the Baboon's skull the dotted lines 
 d^ d^, &c., 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. 
 
 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 
 leave the skull. Again, a line drawn through the 
 axis of the face, between the bones called ethmoid 
 and vomer — the " basifacial axis " {f. e.) forms an 
 exceedingly obtuse angle, where, when produced, 
 it cuts the " basicranial axis." 
 
 If the angle made by the line l c with a h, be 
 called the " occipital angle," and the angle made 
 by the line a d with a & be termed the " olfactory 
 angle " and that made by i T with a 1) the " ten- 
 torial angle" then all tliese, in the mammal in 
 question, are nearly right angles, varying between 
 80° and 110°. The angle efb,OT that made by the 
 cranial with the facial axis, and which may be 
 termed the " craniofacial angle," is extremely ob- 
 tuse, amounting, in the case of the Beaver, to at 
 least 150°.
 
 196 HUMAN FOSSILS. ra 
 
 But if a eeries of sections of mammalian skulls, 
 intermediate between a Kodent and a Man (Fig. 
 29), be examined, it will be found that in the 
 higher crania the basicranial axis becomes shorter 
 relatively to the cerebral length; that the " olfac- 
 tory angle " and " occipital angle " become more 
 obtuse; and that the " craniofacial 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 Monkeys. 
 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 ol- 
 factory plane is 20° or 30° on the under side of 
 that axis; the occipital angle, instead of being less 
 than 90°, ie, 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 
 diagrams, that the basicranial axis is, in the 
 ascending series of Mammalia, a relatively fixed 
 line, on which the bones of the sides and roof of the 
 cranial cavity, and of the face, may be said to re- 
 volve downwards and forwards or backwards, acv
 
 Fig 30.— Sections of orthognathous (lig^t contour) 
 and prognathous (dark contour) skulls, one-t hird of the 
 natural SS. a b, Basicranial axis; b c, b' C, plane of the 
 ^Tp^l fSamen; dd', hinder end of the palatine bone; 
 ^^l^Jr^nt end of the upper jaw; TT', insertion of the 
 tentohuixL.
 
 198 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 
 
 cording to their position. The arc described by 
 any one bone or plane, however, is not by any 
 means always in proportion to the arc described by 
 another. 
 
 Now conies the important question, can we dis- 
 cern, between the lowest and the highest forms of 
 the human cranium anything answering, in how- 
 ever slight a degree, to this revolution of the side 
 and roof bones of the skull upon the basicranial 
 axis observed upon so great a scale in the mam- 
 malian series? Numerous observations lead me to 
 believe that we must answer this question in the 
 affirmative. 
 
 The diagrams in Fig. 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 their an- 
 terior ends, and in their direction. The deviations 
 of the rest of the contours (which represent the in- 
 terior of the skulls only) show the differences 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 
 Eoyal College of Surgeons; and of a well de- 
 veloped round skull from a cemetery in Con-
 
 m VAEIATIONS: HUMAN SKULLS. I99 
 
 stantinople, of uncertain race, in my own pos- 
 session. 
 
 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 
 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 oc- 
 cipital foramen (& c) forms a somewhat smaller 
 angle with the axis in these particular prognathous 
 skulls than in the orthognathous; and the like may 
 be slightly true of the perforated plate of the eth- 
 moid — 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 or- 
 thognathous, the cerebral cavity projecting decid- 
 edly 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 differ- 
 ent regions of the cavity which contains the brain, 
 in the different skulls. Nor is the difference in the 
 extent to which the cerebral overlaps the cere- 
 bellar cavity less singular. A round skull (Fig. 30, 
 Const.) may have a greater posterior cerebral pro- 
 jection 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
 
 200 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 
 
 collection to possess a single skull which is not bi- 
 sected longitudinally — until the angles and meas- 
 urements here mentioned, together with a number 
 of others of which I cannot speak in this place, are 
 determined, and tabulated with reference to the 
 basicranial 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 ethno- 
 logical craniology which aspires to give the ana- 
 tomical characters of the crania of the different 
 Eaces 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 dolicho- 
 cephalic, 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 Cal- 
 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
 
 m AUSTRALIAN SKULLS. 201 
 
 marked characters of Calmuck or Negro — group 
 themselves. 
 
 It is worthy of notice that the regions of the 
 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) * 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, 
 
 * See Dr. D. Wilson's valuable paper " On the sup- 
 posed prevalence of one Cranial Type throughout the 
 American Aborigines." — Canadian Journal, Vol. II. 1857.
 
 202 HUMAN FOSSILS. in 
 
 which is frequently, though not by any means 
 invariably, solid throughout, the frontal sinuses re- 
 maining undeveloped. The nasal depression, 
 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, for- 
 wards, almost immediately. In consequence of 
 this circumstance, 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 Aus- 
 tralian 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 
 remarkably 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 Aus- 
 tralia, 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.
 
 in 
 
 THE FOSSIL SKULLS. 
 
 203 
 
 Fig. 31 represents the contour of a skull of 
 this kind from Western Port, with the jaw 
 attached, and of the Neanderthal skull, both 
 reduced to one-third of the size of nature. A small 
 
 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. 
 
 additional amount of flattening and lengthening, 
 with a corresponding increase of the supraciliary 
 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.
 
 204 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 
 
 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 hin- 
 dered by 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 hie 
 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 turn- 
 ing 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 trust- 
 worthy 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
 
 m THE FOSSIL SKULLS. 205 
 
 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 be- 
 longed 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 characters, stamp- 
 ing it as the most pithecoid of human crania yet 
 discovered. But Professor Schaaffhausen states 
 (supra, p. 178), that the cranium, in its present 
 condition, holds 1033.24 cubic centimetres 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 capac- 
 ity 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 di- 
 mensions of the other bones of the skeleton given
 
 206 HUMAN FOSSILS. m 
 
 by Professor Sehaaffhausen, 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. Sehaaffhausen, 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 re- 
 markable 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 livia. And in- 
 deed, 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 lead- 
 ing gradually from it to the highest and best de- 
 veloped 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. 
 And, on the other hand, it is even more closely
 
 Fig. 32. — Ancient Danish skull from a tumulus at 
 Borreby; one-third of the natural size. From a camera 
 iucida drawing by Mr. Busk.
 
 208 HUMAN FOSSILS. in 
 
 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 
 " Kjokkenmoddings " 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.* 
 
 [* 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 ex- 
 hibits 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, in- 
 asmuch as a complete series of gradations can be found, 
 among recent human skulls, between it and the best de- 
 veloped forms, there is no ground for separating its pos- 
 sessor specifically, still less generically, from Homo 
 sapietis. 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 char- 
 acters of the skull justify any conclusion as to the age to
 
 m ANCIENT DANISH SKULLS. 209 
 
 In conclusion, I may say, 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. And considering what is now 
 known of the most ancient Eaees 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 re- 
 mained 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 ex- 
 pected. 
 
 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 an- 
 tiquity of Man. 
 
 ■which it belongs." See also the essay on the Aryan •= i£8- 
 tion in this volume. 1894.] 
 
 178
 
 IV. 
 
 ON THE METHODS AND RESULTS OF 
 ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 [1865.] 
 
 Ethnology is the science which determines 
 the distinctive characters of the persistent modifica- 
 tions of mankind; which ascertains the distribution 
 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, ethnology has nothing 
 to do with chance and transitory peculiarities of 
 human structure. And I speak of " persistent 
 modifications " or " stocks " rather than of " varie- 
 ties," or "races," or "species," 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 ulti- 
 mate object of the science; and in regard to which, 
 therefore, ethnologists are especially bound to 
 210
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 211 
 
 keep their minds open and their judgments freely 
 balanced. 
 
 Ethnology, as thus defined, is a branch of An- 
 thropology, the great science which unravels the 
 complexities of human structure; traces out the re- 
 lations of man to other animals; studies all that is 
 especially human in the mode in which man's com- 
 plex 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 Bi- 
 ology — 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 manifesta- 
 tion 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 ordi- 
 nary life — he may apply to mankind themselves^ 
 the conclusions drawn from a searching analysis of" 
 their words and grammatical forms. 
 
 Or, the ethnologist may turn to the study of
 
 212 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 the practical life of men; and relying upon 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 be- 
 liefs of men concerning past events, embodied in 
 traditional, or in written testimony. Or, when that 
 thread breaks. Archaeology, which is the interpre- 
 tation 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 archaeology 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 imme- 
 morially 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 ethnolo- 
 gist 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 investigations 
 are of great value for all those peoples whose an- 
 cient state has differed widely from their present 
 condition, and who have the good or evil fortune to
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 213 
 
 possess a history. But on taking a broad survey of 
 the world, it is astonishing how few nations present 
 either condition. Eespecting five-sixths of the per- 
 sistent modifications of mankind, 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 thou- 
 sand 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, substan- 
 tially what they are now? While thankfully ac- 
 cepting 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 iden- 
 tity of stock the difficulty always obtrudes itself, 
 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
 
 214 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 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 drink- 
 ing-vessels, or that they employ spears, or clubs, or 
 fiwords 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 cala- 
 bashes or shells for such purposes, and the advan- 
 tage 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 sav- 
 age. 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 an- 
 gular piece of native metal, for the same object. 
 On the other hand, it may be doubted, whether the 
 chances are not greatly against independent peo- 
 ples 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-chew- 
 ing and tobacco-smoking, may afford valuable eth- 
 nological hints. 
 
 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.
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 215 
 
 termed Ethnology, must be mainly founded on the 
 relations of their languages." 
 
 An eminent living philologer, August 
 Schleicher, in a recent essay, puts forward the 
 claims of his science still more forcibly: — 
 
 " If, however, language is the human kot' ^Iox^v, the 
 suggestion 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 occasionally 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-called Tartaric Turks exem- 
 plify the Mongol type. On the other hand, the Magyar 
 and the Basque do not depart in any essential physical 
 peculiarity from the Indo-Germans, whilst the Magyar, 
 Basque, and Indo-Gerraanic 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 which other vital products are 
 susceptible, especially when viewed from their morpho- 
 logical side. . . . The externally visible structure of the 
 cerebral and facial skeletons, and of the body generally, 
 is less important than that no less material but infinitely 
 more delicate corporeal structure, the function of which
 
 216 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 is speech. I conceive, therefore, that the natural classi- 
 fication of languages, is also the natural classification of 
 mankind. With language, moreover, all the higher mani- 
 festations of man's vital activity are closely interwoven, 
 so that these receive due recognition in and by that of 
 speech." * 
 
 Without the least desire to depreciate the value 
 of philology as an adjuvant to ethnology, I must 
 venture to doubt, with Rudolphi, Desmouhns, 
 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 ob- 
 vious 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, un- 
 less philologers are prepared to demonstrate, that 
 no nation can lose its language and acquire that of 
 a distinct nation, without a change of blood corre- 
 sponding with the change of language. Desmou- 
 lins long ago put this argument exceedingly well: — 
 
 " Let us imagine the recurrence of one of those slow, 
 or sudden, political revolutions, or say of those secular 
 changes which among difi"erent people and at diflFerent 
 epochs have annihilated historical monuments and even 
 extinguished tradition. In that case, the evidence, now 
 so clear, that the negroes of Hayti were slaves imported 
 
 •August Schleicher. Ueber di^ Bedeidung der 
 Sprache fiir die Naturgeschichte des Memchen, pp. 16 
 —18. Weimar, 1858.
 
 ]yiETHODs A^^) results of ethnology. 217 
 
 "by a French colony, who, by the very effect of the sub- 
 ordination involved in slavery lost their own diverse lan- 
 guages 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, de- 
 scended 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." * 
 
 It must not be imagined that the case put by 
 DesmouUns 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 Eu- 
 rope in which two or more nations speaking widely 
 different tongues have not become intermixed; 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 An- 
 glo-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 
 
 * Desmoulins, Eistoire 'Saturelle dm Races Eumaines, 
 p. 345, 1826.
 
 218 METHODS AND RESULTS OP ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 amount of Kelticism, 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 dif- 
 ferent proportions. Italian is modern Latin all the world 
 over; yet surely there 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 ex- 
 clusively Gothic than the speech." * 
 
 In other words, what philologer, if he had noth- 
 ing 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 Provengal, of an Orcadian to a Cornishman? 
 How readily might he be led to suppose that the 
 different climatal conditions to which these speak- 
 ers of one tongue have so long been exposed, have 
 caused their physical differences; 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 
 
 • Latham, Man and his Migrations, p. 17L
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 219 
 
 of the Western Pacific," especially remarks 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 
 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
 
 220 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 to those of the Polynesians, that no one has ven- 
 tured 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 se- 
 curity 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 dis- 
 tributed 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. 
 
 Denies primores incisores : sriperiores IV. paraUeliy 
 mamrruB peeiorales II, 
 
 1. Homo. Nosoe te ipsum. 
 
 Sapiens, 1. H. diurnus : varians cultura, loco, 
 
 Ferus. Tetrapus, mutus, hirsutus. 
 
 Americanus a, Rufus, cholericus, rectus — Pilis nigrls, reo- 
 tis, crassis — Naribus patulis — Facie ephe- 
 litica : Mento subimberbi. 
 
 Fertinax, contentus, liber. Pingit se lineis 
 daedaleis rubris. 
 
 Regitur Consuetudine.
 
 METHODS AKD RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 221 
 
 Europceus $, Albus sanguineus torosus. Pilis flavescen* 
 tibus, proliiis. 
 Oculis cceruleis. 
 
 Levis, argutus, inventor. Tegitur Vesti- 
 mentis arctis, Regitur Ritibus. 
 Aaiaticus y. Luridus, melancholicus, rigidus. Pilta ni- 
 gricantibus. Oculis fuscis. Severus, fas- 
 tuosus, avarus. Tegitur Indumentis laxis. 
 Regitur Opinionibus. 
 Afer 8. Niger, phlegmaticus, laxus. Pilis atris, con- 
 
 tortuplicatis. Cute holosericea. Naso 
 simo. Labiis tumidis, Feminia sinus 
 pudoris. 
 MammcB lactantes prolixa8. 
 Vafer, segnis, negligens. Ungit se pingui 
 Regitur Arbitrio. 
 Monstrosua e. Solo (a) et arte (b c) variat. : 
 
 a. Alpini parvi, agiles, timidi. 
 Patagonici magni, segnes. 
 
 b. Monorchides ut minus fertiles: Hotten- 
 
 totti. 
 Juneece- puellre, abdomine attenuate : Eu- 
 ropaeae. 
 
 c. Macrocephali capiti conico : Chinenses. 
 Plagiocephali capite antice compresso : 
 
 Canadenses. 
 
 Turn a few pages further on in the same vol- 
 ume, and there appears, with a fine impartiality 
 in the distribution of capitals and subdivisional 
 headings: — 
 
 III. Feb^. 
 Denies primores superiores sex, acutiusculi. Canini 
 
 aolitarii. 
 
 12. Canis. Denies primores superiores VI. : laterales 
 
 longiores distantes: intermedii lobati. In- 
 feriores VI. : laterales lobati.
 
 222 METHODS AND RESULTS OP ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 Laniarii solitarii, incurvati. 
 Molares VI. s. VIL (pluresve quam in reli- 
 quis.) 
 
 familiaris 1. C. Cauda (sinistrorsum) recurvata 
 
 domesticua a. auriculis erectis, cauda subtus lanata. 
 sagax p. auriculis pendulis, digito spurio ad tibias 
 
 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 he 
 ohserved, as completely free from any allusion 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 subject 
 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
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 223 
 
 persistent than physical characters, is one which 
 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 Aus- 
 tralia 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 tem- 
 perate, 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 charac- 
 ters and social state. For the most part of fair 
 stature, erect and well built, except for an un- 
 usual slenderness of the lower limbs, the Aus- 
 tralians have dark, usually chocolate-coloured 
 skins; fine dark wavy hair; dark eyes, overhung by 
 beetle brows; coarse, projecting jaws; broad and
 
 224 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 dilated, but not especially flattened, 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,* 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 
 
 [* 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.]
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 225 
 
 superfluity with which they dispense; and though 
 they have some singular weapons, almost peculiar 
 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 character- 
 istic 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 lati- 
 tude 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 under- 
 stood the use of the throwing-stick. But he dif- 
 fered from the Australian in his 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 Heb- 
 rides, the Louisiade Archipelago; and stretching 
 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, interposed 
 between the Australians on the west and the in- 
 habitants of the great majority of the Pacific islands 
 on the east.
 
 226 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 The cranial characters of the Negritos vary con- 
 siderably more than those of their skin and hair, 
 the most notable circumstance being the strong 
 Australian aspect which distinguishes many Ne- 
 grito skulls, while others tend rather towards forms 
 common in the Polynesian islands. 
 
 In civilization, New Caledonia exhibits an ad- 
 vance 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
 
 METHODS AXD RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 227 
 
 Indian Ocean, into the interior of Madagascar, we 
 shall everywhere meet with people whose hair is 
 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 in- 
 dentation. It is only in the westernmost parts of 
 their area that the Amphinesian nations know any- 
 thing 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 between the 
 American and the Polynesian is less than that be- 
 tween either of the previously named stocks. 
 
 The typical American has straight black hair 
 and dark eyes, his skin exhibiting various shades 
 of reddish or yellowish brown, sometimes inclining
 
 228 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 to olive. The face is broad and scantily bearded; 
 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 irrigation. 
 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 useful, metals; * 
 and had even attained to a rude kind of hiero- 
 glyphic, or picture, writing. The Americans 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; f 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 
 
 [* With the exception of copper and bronze. — 1894.] 
 [t A suspicion subsequently verified. See a memoir on 
 
 American Skulls, Journal of Anatomy and Physiology. 
 
 Vol. 16.— 1894.]
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 229 
 
 are included), in fact, though they share the 
 straight black hair of the proper Americans, are 
 generally a duller complexioned, shorter, and a 
 more squat people, and they have still more promi- 
 nent cheek-bones. But the circumstance which 
 most completely separates them from the typical 
 Americans, is the form of their skulls, which in- 
 stead 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 anything of metals. Dependent for exist- 
 ence 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 bur- 
 den of the Esquimaux. 
 
 It is admitted that the Tchuktchi, on the east- 
 ern 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 Tun- 
 guses 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-
 
 230 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 chouria to Siam, Thibet, and Northern Hindostan, 
 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 exceed- 
 ingly flat; and with small, obliquely-set * black 
 eyes and straight black hair, which sometimes at- 
 tains 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 depres- 
 sion, and but slight, if any, projection of the jaws. 
 Many of these people, from whom the old name of 
 Mongolians may be retained, are nomades; others, 
 as the Chinese, have attained a remarkable and ap- 
 parently 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- 
 
 [* 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.]
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 231 
 
 logical classification, I shall use a new name — 
 Xanthochroi — indicating that they are " yellow " 
 haired and " pale " in complexion. The Chinese 
 historians of the Plan dynasty, writing in the third 
 century before our era, describe, with much 
 minuteness, certain numerous and powerful bar- 
 barians with " yellow hair, green eyes, and promi- 
 nent 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 enemies were 
 no less known to the ancient Hindoos, to the Per- 
 sians, and to the P]gyptians, on the south and west 
 of the great central Asiatic area; while the testi- 
 mony 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 dis- 
 turbers of the marches of the Roman Empire were 
 called Gauls or Germans, Goths, Alans, or Scyth- 
 ians, one thing seems certain, that until the in- 
 vasion 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 Xan- 
 thochroic population from the Rhine to the Yeni-
 
 232 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 sei, 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 ex- 
 isting 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 Eohillas, 
 are at the present day fair, yellow or red haired, 
 and blue-eyed; and the interpolation of tribes of 
 Mongolian hair and complexion, as far west as the 
 Caspian Steppes and the Crimea, might justly be 
 accounted for by those subsequent westward irrup- 
 tions of the Mongolian stock, of which history fur- 
 nishes abundant testimony. The furthermost 
 limit of the Xanthochroi north-westward is Ice- 
 land 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 Yeni- 
 sei is unknown. 
 
 West and south of the area occupied by the 
 chief mass of the Xanthochroi, and north of the 
 
 I
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 233 
 
 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 west- 
 em ends of the forks by the Atlantic. The ma- 
 jority of the people inhabiting the area thus 
 roughly defined have, like the Xanthochroi, promi- 
 nent noses, pale skins and wavy hair, with abun- 
 dant 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 Gaul, 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, Eomans, Pelasgiaas, 
 Berbers, Semites. The majority of them are long- 
 headed, and of smaller stature than the Xantho- 
 chroi.* It is needless to remark upon the civiliza- 
 tion of these two great stocks. With them has 
 originated everything that is highest in science, in 
 art, in law, in politics, and in mechanical inven- 
 tions. In their hands, at the present moment, lies 
 the order of the social world, and to them its pro- 
 gress is committed. 
 
 [* See the Essay on the Aryan Question, in this vol- 
 ume, for some qualifications of these statements neces- 
 sitated by further knowledge. — 1894.]
 
 234 METHODS AND RiESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 South of the Atlas, and of the Great Desert, 
 Middle Africa exhibits a new type of humanity in 
 the Negeo, 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 ap- 
 proaches the broad type, and never exhibits the 
 roundness of the Mongolian. A cultivator of the 
 ground, and dwelling in villages; a maker of pot- 
 tery, 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. 
 
 Eesembling 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; * 
 
 [* 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 pra^semitic population of 
 Babylonia to the Dravidians, on the one hand, and the 
 Old "Egyptian on the other. Only one point appears to me 
 to be quite clear, if the statues of Tell Loh represent these
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 235 
 
 while the diminutive Mincopies of the Andaman 
 Islands lie midway between the Negro and Ne- 
 grito races, and, as Mr. Busk has pointed out, occa- 
 sionally 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 distinguish- 
 able 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 intermix- 
 ture 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 pur- 
 pose if it be admitted (and I think it cannot be 
 denied) that those which I have mentioned 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- 
 people; that there is not a trace of Mongolian affinity 
 about them.— 1894.]
 
 236 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 ingly into the two primary groups of Leiotrichi and 
 Ulotrichi, — terms which are open to criticism, 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 exist- 
 ence, than to burthen it with a faultless newly in- 
 vented one. 
 
 Lkiotrichi. Ulotrichi. 
 
 Dolichocephali. Brachycephali. Dolichocephali. Brachycephali. 
 Leucous. 
 
 .... Xanthochroi .... 
 Leucomelanous. 
 
 .... Melanochroi .... 
 Xanthomelanous. 
 
 Esquimaux. Mongolians. Bushmen. 
 Amphinesians. 
 ATYiericans. 
 Melanous. 
 
 Australians. Negroes. Mincopies (?) 
 
 Negritos. 
 *** The nam^ of the stocks knovm only since the fifteenth cen- 
 tury are put into italics. If the " Skrdlings" of the Norse discov- 
 erers of America were Esquimaux, Europeans became acquainted 
 with the latter six or seven centuries earlier. 
 
 Under each of these divisions are two columns, 
 one for the Brachycephali, or short heads, and one 
 for the Dolichocephali,* or long heads. Again, 
 each column is subdivided transversely into four 
 compartments, one for the " leucous," people with 
 
 * Skulls, the transverse diameter of which is more than 
 eight-tenths the long diameter, are short; those which 
 have the transverse diameter less than eight-tenths the 
 longitudinal, are long.
 
 METHODS AKD RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 237 
 
 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. 
 
 It is curious to observe that almost all the 
 woolly-haired people are also long-headed; while 
 among the straight-haired nations broad heads pre- 
 ponderate, and only two stocks, the Esquimaux and 
 the Australians, are exclusively long-headed. 
 
 One of the acutest and most original of ethnolo- 
 gists, Desmoulins, originated the idea, which has 
 subsequently been fully developed by Agassiz, that 
 the distribution of the persistent modifications of 
 man is governed by the same laws as that of other 
 animals, and that both fall into the same great dis- 
 tributional 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 populations, 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 es- 
 sentially Australian, 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,
 
 238 METHODS AND RESULTS OP ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 the differences between the Mongolians and the 
 Xanthochroi are out of all proportion greater than 
 those between the Faunae and Florae 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 in- 
 complete inner zone of dark woolly-haired Negritos 
 and Negroes, from an outer zone of comparatively 
 pale and smooth-haired men, occupying the Amer- 
 icas, and nearly all Asia * and North Africa, f 
 
 Such is a brief sketch of the characters and dis- 
 tribution 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 
 
 I"* Hindostan excepted. — 1894.] 
 [t Egypt excepted.— 1894.]
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 239 
 
 possessed a fragment of written history at the time 
 it came into contact with European civilization. 
 The other four — the Negroes, Mongolians, 
 Xanthochroi, and Melanochroi — have always ex- 
 isted in some of the localities in which they are now 
 found, nor do the negroes ever seem to have volun- 
 tarily travelled beyond the limits of their present 
 area. But ancient 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 Cen- 
 tral 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, twenty * 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 
 
 [* We may now safely say thirty or forty. — 1894.]
 
 240 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 Scandinavia, of pre-Eoman Britain, of Gaul, of 
 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 
 
 [* 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 know thrusting alone is represented. — 1894.]
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 241 
 
 belong to what is, properly speaking, the present 
 order of things, have long been extinct. Beyond 
 the limits of a fraction of Europe, Palaeontology 
 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 morpho- 
 logically; but it is very hard to prove, in any par- 
 ticular case, how much of a supposed national char- 
 acteristic is due to inherent physiological peculiari- 
 ties, and how much to the influence of circum- 
 stances. There is much evidence to show, how- 
 ever, 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 rav- 
 ages 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 cer- 
 tain stocks of mankind exhibit, more or less dis- 
 tinctly, the physiological characters of true species. 
 Unions between these stocks, and still more be- 
 tween the half-breeds arising from their mixture, 
 180
 
 242 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 are affirmed to be either infertile, or less fertile 
 than those which take place between males and fe- 
 males of either stock under the same circum- 
 stances. Some go so far as to assert that no mixed 
 breeds of mankind can maintain themselves with- 
 out the assistance of one or other of the parent 
 stocks, and that, consequently, they must inevit- 
 ably be obHterated 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 adventitious 
 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 man- 
 kind were crossed, and their progeny intermarried 
 without any admixture from without — is the fa- 
 mous case of the Pitcairn Islanders, who were the 
 progeny of Bligh's English sailors by Tahitian 
 women. The results of this experiment, as every- 
 body 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
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OP ETHNOLOGY. 243 
 
 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 ques- 
 tion 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; second- 
 ly, those of the Polygenists; and thirdly, that which 
 would result from a simple application of Darwin- 
 ian principles to mankind. 
 
 According to the Monogenists, all mankind 
 have sprung from a single pair, whose multitudi- 
 nous progeny spread themselves over the world, 
 such as it now is, and became modified into the
 
 244 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 forms we meet with in the various regions of the 
 earth, by the effect of the climatal and other condi- 
 tions 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 somewhere in Asia, 
 about six thousand years ago; that Eve was 
 modelled from one of his ribs; and that the progeny 
 of these two having been reduced to the eight per- 
 sons 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 be- 
 come converted into Negroes, Australians, Mongo- 
 lians, &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, 
 Blumenbach, Cuvier, Prichard, and many distin- 
 guished living ethnologists.
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 245 
 
 These " Eational 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, be- 
 yond the ken of Archbishop Usher, man was cre- 
 ated, somewhere between the Caucasus and the 
 Hindoo Koosh; thirdly, that he might have mi- 
 grated 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 diversities of climate 
 and other conditions upon people so migrating, is 
 sufficient to account for all the diversities of man- 
 kind. 
 
 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," in- 
 vented quite innocently by Blumenbach, is the 
 oddest. A Georgian woman's skull was the 
 handsomest in his collection. Hence it became 
 his model exemplar of human skulls, from which 
 all others might be regarded as deviations; and
 
 246 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 out of this, by some strange intellectual hocus- 
 pocus, grew up the notion that the Caucasian man 
 is the prototypic " Adamic " man, and his coun- 
 try the primitive centre of our kind. Perhaps 
 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 accept- 
 ing 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 become 
 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 generations unaltered 
 in complexion, but which are open to the objection 
 that they may have received infusions of fresh Eu- 
 ropean blood; but there is the broad fact, that not 
 a single indigenous Negro exists either in the great
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OP ETHNOLOGY. 247 
 
 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 ad- 
 vocates of the direct influence of conditions. And 
 as for the more important modifications observed 
 in the structure of the brain, and in the form of the 
 skull, no one has ever pretended to show in what 
 way they can be effected directly by climate. 
 
 It is here, in fact, that the strength of the Poly- 
 genists, or those who maintain that men primi- 
 tively arose, not from one, but from many stocks, 
 lies. Show us, they say to the Monogenists, 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 fonv^ard 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 modifica- 
 tion of character by climatic influences. Finally, 
 prove to us that the evidence in favour of the spe- 
 cific distinctness of many animals, admitted to be 
 distinct species by all zoologists, is a whit better 
 than that upon which we maintain the specific dis- 
 tinctness of men. 
 
 If presenting unanswerable objections to your
 
 248 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 adversary were the same thing as proving your 
 own case, the Polygenists 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 Monoge- 
 nists, 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 Afri- 
 can from the Troglodytic stock, the Mongolian 
 from the Orangs. 
 
 The first hypothesis is hardly likely to win 
 much favour. The whole tendency of modern sci- 
 ence 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 safely be affirmed 
 that, even if the differences between men are spe- 
 cific, they are so small, that the assumption of more 
 than one primitive stock for all is altogether super-
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 249 
 
 fluous. Surely no one can now be found to assert 
 that any two stocks of mankind differ as much as a 
 chimpanzee 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 spe- 
 cies, 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 ail 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- 
 more, 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. 
 
 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
 
 250 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 appeared contemporaneously, is also an open ques- 
 tion 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 Africa.* 
 The Caspian and the Aral seas have been one, and 
 their united waters have probably communicated 
 
 [• Later investigations tend to show that only a small 
 part of the Sahara has been submerged. — 1894.]
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 251 
 
 with both the Arctic and the Mediterranean 
 oceans.* The greater part of North America haa 
 been under water, and has emerged. It is highly 
 probable that a large part of the Malayan Archi- 
 pelago 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 Archi- 
 pelagof 
 
 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 these slow and 
 gradual, but immense alterations, were wholly or 
 in part inhabited before the changes I have indi- 
 cated began — and it is more probable that they 
 
 [' With reference to certain reclamations that have 
 been made d prupos of a speculation set forth in the essay 
 on the Aryan Question (infrd), I draw attention to the 
 fact that this passage was written twenty-nine years ago. 
 —1894.] 
 
 [t The occurrence of this extensive subsidence is dis- 
 puted.— 1894. J
 
 252 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 
 
 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 thrust, in the course of long series of genera- 
 tions, from land to land, impelled by encroach- 
 ments 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 varia- 
 tion 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 accom- 
 panied by comparative or absolute exemptions 
 from that scourge, the inevitable tendency would 
 be to the preservation and multiplication of the 
 darker and woollier families, and the elimination 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 the forests of 
 Louisiana, a negro stock would eventually people 
 the region.* Again, how often, by such physical 
 
 [* Mr. Pearson, in his very interesting work On Na- 
 tional Life and Character, justly dwells upon the ob-
 
 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 253 
 
 changes, must a stock have been isolated from all 
 others for innumerable generations, and have 
 found ample time for the hereditary hardening of 
 its special peculiarities into the enduring charac- 
 ters 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. 
 
 stacles to the existence of the white races within the 
 Tropics. There is, however, this point to be considered, 
 that the fevers to which the white men succumb are 
 probably caused by microbes; and that modern thera- 
 peutic 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.]
 
 V. 
 
 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 use- 
 ful to attempt to pick out, from amidst the con- 
 fused 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 com- 
 plexion — the one fair, and the other dark. The 
 9&i
 
 ▼ BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 255 
 
 dark people resembled the Aquitani and the Iberi- 
 ans; the fair people were like the Belgic Gauls. 
 
 The chief direct evidence of the truth of this 
 proposition is the well-known passage of Tacitus: — 
 
 " Ceterum Britanniam qui mortales initio coluerint, 
 indigenee an advecti, ut inter barbaros, parum compertum. 
 Uabitua corporum varii : atque ex eo argumenta : namque 
 rutilsB Caledoniam habitantium comae, magni artua, Ger- 
 manicam originem asseverant. Silurum eoiorati vultus 
 et torti plerumque crines, et posita contra Hispania, 
 Iberoa veterea trajeciase, eaaque sedea occupaase, lidem 
 faciunt. Proximi Gallia et aimilea sunt; seu durante 
 originia vi, seu procurrentibua in diveraa tenia, poaitio 
 coeli corporibua habitura dedit. In univeraum tamen aeati- 
 manti, Gallos vicinum aolum occupaaae, credibile eat; 
 eorum sacra deprehendaa, auperatitionum persuasione; 
 sermo baud multum diveraus." * 
 
 This passage, it will be observed, contains state- 
 ments 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; sec- 
 ondly, 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 peo- 
 ple nearest Gaul resemble the " Galli." 
 
 Tacitus, therefore, states positively what the 
 Caledonians and Silures were like; but the inter- 
 pretation of what he says about the other Britons 
 
 • Tacitus Agricola, c. 11.
 
 256 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. v 
 
 must depend upon what we learn from other 
 sources as to the characters of these " Galh." Here 
 the testimony of " divus J uhus " comes in with 
 great force and appropriateness. Caesar writes: — 
 
 " Britannise pars interior ab iis incolitur, quos natos in 
 insula ipsi uiemoria proditum dicunt: marituma pars ab 
 iis, qui prsedse ac belli inferendi causa ex Belgio transie- 
 rant; qui oinnes fere iis nominibus civitatum appellantur 
 quibus orti ex civitatibus eo pervenerunt, et bello inlato 
 ibi permanserunt atque agros colere cceperunt." * 
 
 From these passages it is obvious that, in the 
 opinion of Csesar and Tacitus, the southern Britons 
 resembled the northern Gauls, and especially the 
 Belgag; 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." f 
 
 The evidence adduced appears to leave no rea- 
 sonable ground for doubting that, at the time of 
 the Eoman 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- 
 ment of Tacitus, or, more properly, according to 
 the information he had received from Agricola and 
 others, more similar to the Germans than the lat- 
 
 ♦ De Bello Gallico, v. 12. 
 
 t The Geography of Strabo. Translated by Hamilton 
 and Falconer, v. 5.
 
 y BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 257 
 
 ter. As to the distribution of these stocks, all that 
 is clear is, that the dark people were predominant 
 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 evi- 
 dence 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.* The suggestion is obvious 
 that the one form of skull may have been associated 
 with the fair, and the other with the dark, com- 
 plexion. 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 amonsr 
 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. 
 
 What the natives of Ireland were like at the 
 time of the Roman conquest of Britain, and for 
 centuries afterwards, we have no certain knowl- 
 
 • See Dr. Thurman " On the Two principal Forms of 
 Ancient British and Gaulish Skulls." 
 
 181
 
 258 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. v 
 
 edge; 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 an- 
 cient, as among modern, Irish. 
 
 II. The people termed Gauls, and those called 
 Germans, by the 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 bv 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 Sue- 
 tonius (Caligula, 4), that Caligula tried to pass off 
 Gauls for Germans by picking out the tallest, and 
 making then " rutilare et summittere comam." 
 
 The Baron de Belloguet remarks upon this pas- 
 sage: 
 
 " It was in the very north of Gaul, and near the sea, 
 that Caligula got up this military comedy. And the fact
 
 T BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 259 
 
 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. Ammi- 
 anus Marcellinus * tells how, in the year 3G7 a. d., 
 the Koman 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: — 
 
 '• Galliarum hoc inventum rutilandis capillis . . . apud 
 Germanos majore in usu viris quam foeniinis." t 
 
 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 Suetonius, Caligula 
 forced them to do. And, further, 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 Be Belloguet's supposition that, even in Cal- 
 
 * Res Uestcc, xxvii. ^ Historia Naturalis, xxviii. 51.
 
 260 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. v 
 
 ignla's time, the Gauls had become darker than 
 their ancestors were, it is directly contradicted by 
 Ammianus Marcellinus, who knew the Gauls well. 
 " Celsioris staturae et candidi pcene 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 com- 
 monly 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 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 ele-
 
 T BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 261 
 
 ments of the solution of which are not attain- 
 able. 
 
 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 " Melanocliroi,'' and 
 the fair whites, or " Xanthochroi." 
 
 IV. The Xanthochroi and the Melanochroi of 
 Britain are, speaking broadly, distributed, at pres- 
 ent, as they were in the time of Tacitus; arid their 
 representatives on the continent of Europe have 
 the same general distribution as at the earliest 
 period of which 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 con- 
 tinues in force through Central Europe, until it is 
 lost in Central Asia. Offshoots of this stock ex- 
 tend into Spain, Italy, and Northern India, and 
 by way of Syria and North Africa, to the Canary
 
 262 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. T 
 
 Islands. They were known in very early times to 
 the Chinese^ and in still earlier to the ancient 
 Egyptians, as frontier tribes. The Thraeians were 
 notorious for their fair hair and blue eyes manj 
 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 south- 
 ern and eastern shores, the Mongoloids occupy a 
 vast triangle, the base of which is the whole of 
 Eastern Asia, while its apex lies in Lapland. The 
 Melanochroi, on the other hand, may be repre- 
 sented as a broad band stretching from Ireland to 
 Hindostan; while the Xanthochroic area lies be-
 
 V BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 263 
 
 tween the two, thins out, so to speak, at either end, 
 and mingles, at its margins, with both its neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 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 conclu- 
 sions which I draw from these and other facts are 
 — (1) That the Melanochroi and the Xanthochroi 
 are two separate races in the biological 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 population of the British 
 Islands is derived from them, and from them 
 only. 
 
 The people of Europe, however, owe their na- 
 tional names, not to their physical characteristics, 
 but to their languages, or to their political rela- 
 tions; which, it is plain, need not have the slightest 
 relation to these characteristics. 
 
 Thus, it is quite certain that, in Cassar's time, 
 Gaul was divided politically into three nationali- 
 ties — the Belga3, the Celtae, and the Aquitani; and 
 that the last were very widely different, both in 
 language and in physical characteristics, from the 
 two former. The Belgfe and the Celtae, on the 
 other hand, differed comparatively little either 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
 
 264: BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. t 
 
 almost the same language as the Treviri." Now, 
 the Galatians were emigrant Volcse Tectosages, and 
 therefore Celtae; while the Treviri were Belgas.* 
 
 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 
 Cassar's time; but Belgse, Celtse, and Aquitani (all 
 but a mere fraction of the last two, represented 
 by the Basques and the Bretons) are fused into one 
 nationality, " le peuple Frangais." But they have 
 adopted the language of one set of invaders, and 
 the name of another; their original names and lan- 
 guages having almost disappeared. Suppose that 
 the French language remained as the sole evidence 
 of the existence of the population of Gaul, would 
 the keenest philologer arrive at any other conclu- 
 sion than that this population was essentially and 
 fundamentally a " Latin " race, which had had 
 some communication with Celts and Teutons? 
 Would he so much as suspect the former existence 
 of the Aquitani? 
 
 Community of language testifies to close con- 
 tact between the people who speak the language, 
 but to nothing else; philology has absolutely noth- 
 ing to do with ethnology, except so far as it sug- 
 gests the existence or the absence of such contact. 
 The contrary assumption, that language is a test 
 of race, has introduced the utmost confusion into 
 
 [* This proposition is disputed. — 1894.]
 
 T BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 265 
 
 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 afl&nities may, I 
 believe, be summed up as follows: — 
 
 I. At the time of the Roman conquest, one lan- 
 guage, the Celtic, under two principal dialectical 
 divisions, the Cymric and the Gaelic, was spoken 
 throughout the British Islands. Cymric was 
 spolcen in Britain, Gaelic * 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 Eoman 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. 
 
 II. The Bclgce and the Celtce, 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 
 
 [* I have been told tbat the terma " Cymric " and 
 "Gaelic" are antiquaterl and improper. The reader will 
 please substitute Celtic dialect A and Celtic dialect B for 
 them, and consult, on this subject, especially with re<jard 
 to proposition III., Professor Khys' Early Britain. — 1894.]
 
 266 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. y 
 
 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 spohen 
 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 hecame 
 known, they were spoken only * hy Xanthochroi, 
 that is to say, by the Germans, the Scandinavians, 
 and Goths. And they were imported by Xantho- 
 chroi into Gaul and ijito Britain. 
 
 In Gaul, the imported Teutonic dialect has been 
 completely overpowered by the more or less modi- 
 fied Latin, which it found already in possession; 
 and what Teutonic blood there may be in modern 
 Frenchmen is not adequately represented in their 
 
 [* " Only " is too strong a word, as there were doubt- 
 less some Melanochroi among the Teutonic tribes. — 1894.]
 
 f BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 267 
 
 language. In Britain, on the contrary, the Teu- 
 tonic 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 trod- 
 den out and supplanted by the Teutonic-speaking 
 Saxons and Danes, it is quite certain that no con- 
 siderable displacement of the Celtic-speaking peo- 
 ple 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 gen- 
 erally. Nevertheless, the fundamentally Teutonic 
 English language is now spoken throughout Brit- 
 ain, except by an insignificant fraction of the popu- 
 lation 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 inhabitants 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 
 hesitation in calling a Devonshire man, or a Cor- 
 nish man, an " Anglo-Saxon," would think it ridic- 
 ulous 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.
 
 268 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. ▼ 
 
 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 Scandi- 
 navian 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 at- 
 tempting the extirpation of the Gaelic-speaking 
 Irish. And they succeeded to a considerable ex- 
 tent; a large part of Eastern Ireland is now peopled 
 by men who are substantially English by descent, 
 and the English language has spread over the land 
 far beyond the limits of English blood. 
 
 Ethnologically, the Irish people were originally, 
 like the people of Britain, a mixture of Melano- 
 chroi and Xanthochroi. They resembled the Brit- 
 ons in speaking a Celtic tongue; but it was a Gaelic 
 and not a Cymric form of the Celtic language. Ire- 
 land was untouched by the Koman conquest, nor
 
 ? BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 269 
 
 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 large- 
 ly 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 de- 
 serve 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 in- 
 habitants of Cornwall? And if the name is ap- 
 plicable to the one as justly as to the other, why 
 should not intelhgence, perseverance, thrift, indus- 
 try, 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 are 
 members of the same great Aryan family of lan- 
 guages; hut there is evidence to shoio that a non- 
 Aryan language was at one time spohen over a 
 large extent of the area occupied by Melanochroi 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 Ian-
 
 270 BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. ▼ 
 
 guage 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 primi- 
 tively spoke it; so that the people of Spain and of 
 Aquitaine at the present day must be largely " Eu- 
 skarian " 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 inhab- 
 ited by the dark stock, or the Melanochroi, alone, 
 and these Melanochroi spoke dialects allied to the 
 Euskarian. The Xanthochroi, spreading 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 Melano- 
 chroi far beyond the limits of intermixture of blood, 
 supplanting Euskarian, just as English and French
 
 T BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. 271 
 
 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 Cel- 
 tic, and thus the Celtic speakers were no longer of 
 one ethnological stock, but of two. Both in West- 
 ern Europe and in England a third wave of lan- 
 guage — m the one case Latin, in the other Teu- 
 tonic — has spread over the same area. In Western 
 Europe, it has left a fragment of the primary Eu- 
 skarian in one corner of the country, and a frag- 
 ment of the secondary Celtic in another. In the 
 British islands, only outlying pools of the second- 
 ary 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 Cel- 
 tic-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 AEYAN QUESTION AND PEE- 
 HISTOEIC 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 cease- 
 less 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 wherever they 
 see, or think they see, a chance; and cheerfully to 
 accept defeat, or it may be annihilation, as the 
 reward of error. Unfortunately, the public, which 
 watches the progress of the campaign, too often 
 mistakes a dashing incursion of the Uhlans for a 
 forward movement of the main body; fondly im- 
 agining that the strategic movement to the rear, 
 which occasionally follows, indicates a battle lost 
 272
 
 VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 273 
 
 by science. And it must be confessed that the 
 error is too often justified by the effects of the irre- 
 pressible tendency which men of science share with 
 all other sorts of men known to me, to be impatient 
 of that most wholesome state of mind — suspended 
 judgment; to assume the objective truth of specula- 
 tions which, from the nature of the evidence in 
 their favour, can have no claim to be more than 
 working hypotheses. 
 
 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 *lan- 
 guages with Sanskrit and its derivative dialects 
 now spoken in India. Brilliant and laborious phi- 
 lologists, in long succession, enlarged and strength- 
 ened this position, until the truth that Sanskrit, 
 Zend, Armenian, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Slavo- 
 nian, German, Celtic, and so on, stand to one an- 
 other in the relation of descendants from a common 
 stock, became firmly established, and thencefor- 
 ward 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 hypo- 
 thetical assumptions are involved. 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. 
 182
 
 274 THE ARYAN QUESTION. n 
 
 But the close connection of these widely differ- 
 entiated languages remains altogether inexplicable, 
 unless it is admitted 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 hy- 
 pothetical entity, which corresponds with the 
 " primitive stock " of generic and higher groups 
 among plants and animals; and the acknowledg- 
 ment of its former existence, and of the process of 
 evolution which has brought about the present 
 state of things philological, is forced upon us by 
 deductive reasoning of similar cogency to that em- 
 ployed about things biological. 
 
 Thus, the former existence of a body of rela- 
 tively uniform dialects, which may be called primi- 
 tive Aryan, may be added to the stock of definite- 
 ly acquired truths. But it is obvious that, in the 
 absence of writing or of phonographs, the exist- 
 ence 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 somewhere or 
 other on the earth's surface. Hence philology, 
 without stepping beyond its legitimate bounds and 
 keeping speculation within the limits of bare neces- 
 sity, arrives, not only at the conceptions of Aryan
 
 VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 275 
 
 languages and of a primitive Aryan language; but 
 of a primitive Aryan people and of a primitive 
 Aryan home, or country occupied 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 lan- 
 guages 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 vision, 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 com- 
 parison 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, and who could 
 therefore be hardly lodged elsewhere 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 
 Ivafiristan. Thus far, it can hardly be doubted
 
 276 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 
 
 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 emigrants 
 with as much confidence as if they had access to the 
 records of the office of a primitive Aryan Quarter- 
 master-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. 
 
 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 Eobert Gordon Latham, 
 a man of great learning and singular originality, 
 whose attacks upon the Hindoo-Kooshite doctrine
 
 VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 277 
 
 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 impression left upon my mind, 
 at that time, by various conversations about the 
 *' Sarmatian hypothesis," which my friend wished 
 to substitute for the Hindoo-Koosh-Pamir specula- 
 tion, 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 Eu- 
 rope, as the Aryan people of Greek, or Teutonic, 
 or Celtic speech from Asia. Of late years, Lath- 
 am's views, so long neglected, or mentioned merely 
 as an example of insular eccentricity, have been 
 taken up and advocated with much ability in Ger- 
 many as well as in this country — principally by 
 philologists. Indeed, the glory of Hindoo-Koosh- 
 Pamir seems altogether to have departed. Pro- 
 fessor Max Midler, 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
 
 278 THE ARYAN QUESTION. n 
 
 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 them- 
 selves with the philological arguments on which 
 these conclusions are based to the recently pub- 
 lished works of Dr. Schrader and Canon Taylor; * 
 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 
 Tiew of anthropology, will observe that, very early, 
 the purely biological conception of " race " illegiti- 
 mately mixed itself up with the ideas derived from 
 pure philology. It is quite proper to speak of 
 Aryan " people," because, as we have seen, the ex- 
 istence of the language implies that of a people 
 who speak it; it might be equally permissible to call 
 Latin people all those who speak Eomance dia- 
 lects. But, just as the application of the term 
 
 ♦ Schrader. PrrJiistoric Antiqiiitie/t of the Aryan Peo- 
 ples. Translated by F. B. Jevons, M.A., 1890. Taylor, 
 Tfie Origin of the Aryans, 1890.
 
 Tl THE ARYAN QUESTION. 279 
 
 Latin " race " to the divers people who speak Eo- 
 mance 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. " Eace " is the name of a sub-divi- 
 sion 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 appear in the progeny of all members 
 of the races. Such race-characters may be either 
 bodily or mental, though in practice, the latter, as 
 less easy of observation and definition, can rarely be 
 taken into 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- 
 tion of duly accented syllables would be impossible 
 without the nicest co-ordination of the action of 
 •ihe muscles which move these organs; and such 
 eo-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 en-
 
 280 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 
 
 able him to use a language of one class and not of 
 another. It is further conceivable that a particu- 
 lar 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 linguistic 
 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- 
 munity of language is no proof of unity of race, is 
 not even presumptive evidence of racial identity.* 
 
 * 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.
 
 n THE ARYAN QUESTION. 281 
 
 All that it does prove is that, at some time or other, 
 free and prolonged intercourse has taken place be- 
 tween the speakers of the same language. Phi- 
 lology, 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 dif- 
 ficulty 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 uncon- 
 sciously warped by strong monogenistic proclivities, 
 which, at bottom, however respectable and philan- 
 thropic their origin, had nothing to do with sci- 
 ence. So the patent fact that men of Aryan speech 
 presented widely diverse racial characters was ex- 
 plained away by maintaining that the physical 
 
 In the United States the nejrroes have spoken Enfjlish 
 for generations; but no one on that ground wouhl call 
 them Englishmen, or expect them to difTer physically, 
 mentally, or morally from other negroes." — Pall Mali 
 Gazette, Jan. 10, 1870. But the "axiom in ethnology" 
 had been implied, if not enunciated, before mj' time; for 
 example, by Desmoulins in 1826 (See above p. 215.)
 
 282 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 
 
 differentiation was post-Arj^an; 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, an- 
 other had bleached and shot up, under the cool and 
 misty skies of the north, into the semblance of 
 Pomeranian Grenadiers; or of blue-eyed, fair- 
 skinned, six-foot Scotch Highlanders. I do not 
 know that any of the Uhlans who fought so vigor- 
 ously under this flag are left now. I doubt if any 
 one is prepared to say that he believes that the in- 
 fluence 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 sufflciently 
 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,* and 
 
 * 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 veins of English soldiers " as in 
 the veins of the dark Bengalese,'' and that there is " a 
 legitimate relationship between Hindoo, Greek, and Teu- 
 ton," has been visited. So far as I know anything 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 differ- 
 ences between a high-caste Hindoo and a Dravidian. ex- 
 cept the Aryan blood in the veins of the former; and the
 
 VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 283 
 
 of 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 modern 
 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 sometimes imported. The 
 combination of swarthiness with stature above the 
 average and a long skull, confer upon me the serene 
 impartiality of a mongrel; and, having given this 
 pledge of fair dealing, I proceed to state the case 
 for the hypothesis I am inclined to adopt. In do- 
 ing so, I am aware that I deliberately take the shil- 
 ling of the recruiting-sergeant of the Light Bri- 
 gade, and I warn all and sundry that such is the 
 case. 
 
 Looking at the discussions which have taken 
 place from a purely anthropological point of view, 
 the first point wliich has struck me is that the prob- 
 lem 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 
 
 strength of the infusion is probably quite as great in 
 some Hindoos as in some EngUsh soldiers.
 
 284 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 
 
 are grievously insufficient in extent and in pre- 
 cision. Our historical records cover such, an in- 
 finitesimally small extent of the past life of human- 
 ity, that we obtain little help from them. Even so 
 late as 1500 b. c, northern Eurasia lies in historical 
 darkness, except 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 dif- 
 ferentiated from primitive Aryan. Even a thou- 
 sand years later, little enough accurate information 
 is to be had about the racial characters of the Euro- 
 pean 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 the 
 area of the distribution of this race, in primaeval 
 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
 
 Ti THE ARYAN QUESTION. 285 
 
 characters. Typical specimens have tall and mas- 
 sive frames, fair complexions, blue eyes, and yel- 
 low or reddish hair — that is to say, they are pro- 
 nounced 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 same stature 
 and cranial peculiarities as at present, though their 
 bony fabric bears marks of somewhat greater rug- 
 gedness 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
 
 286 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 
 
 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 prov- 
 inces of Belgium into eastern France; into Swit- 
 zerland, South Germany, and the Tyrol; or south- 
 east, into Poland and Eussia; or north, into Fin- 
 land and Lapland, broad-heads make their appear- 
 ance, 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 Ce- 
 vennes and the Alps of Dauphiny, Savoy, and Pied- 
 mont, to the western plains of North Italy, the 
 tall hlond long-heads * practically disappear, and 
 
 * 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 it cannot be said that they are 
 much more graceful ; and, moreover, they are sometimes 
 employed in senses diflferent from that which I have given 
 in the definition of broad-heads and long-heads. The
 
 VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 287 
 
 are replaced by sJiort hrunet hroad-heads. The 
 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 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 
 ky in the area now occupied by the blond long- 
 
 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 in- 
 dex above 80 and " long-heads " have it below 80. The 
 physiological 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.
 
 288 THE ARYAN QUESTION. ti 
 
 heads; and, in that of the antecedent Gaulish inva- 
 sions, the physical characters ascribed to the lead- 
 ing 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 vigor- 
 ous and fertile race must always have impelled 
 them to press upon their neighbours, and thereby 
 afford abundant occasions for intermixture. If, at 
 any given pre-historic time, we 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 in- 
 termix in course of time, in spite of the vast belt of 
 dense forest which extended, almost uninterrupted- 
 ly, 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, 
 throughout what was once the kingdom of Poland, 
 and in Finland, the preponderance of broad-heads 
 goes along with a wide prevalence of blond com- 
 plexion and of good stature. In the extreme 
 north, on the other hand, marked broad-headed- 
 ness is combined with low stature, swarthiness, and 
 more or less strongly Mongolian features, in the 
 Lapps. And it is to be observed that this type pre- 
 vails increasingly to the eastward, among the cen- 
 tral Asiatic populations.
 
 Ti THE ARYAN QUESTION". 289 
 
 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 age. It would seem that 
 these broad-skulled immigrants have been ab- 
 sorbed 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, 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 
 183
 
 290 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 
 
 in which these races appear with least admixture 
 are — (1) Scandinavia, North Germany, and parts 
 of the British Islands; (3) 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 his- 
 toric 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 con- 
 trary, the first great movements of the European 
 population of which there is any conclusive evi- 
 dence is that series of Gaulish invasions 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.
 
 vx THE ARYAN QUESTION. 291 
 
 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 Ligurian and 
 the Rhaetic dialects, which are believed to have 
 been non-Aryan. But, when the Eomans made 
 acquaintance with Transalpine Gaul, the inhabit- 
 ants of that country between the Garonne and the 
 Seine (Casar's Celtica) seem, at any rate for the 
 most part, to have spoken Celtic dialects. The 
 brunet long-heads of Spain and of France appear 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 known 
 to their neighbours as Wends, and among them- 
 selves 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 Po-
 
 292 THE ARYAN QUESTION. Tl 
 
 land and Great Russia to the, often short, brunets 
 common elsewhere. There is certainly 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 Euro- 
 pean 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, 
 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 ex- 
 tended their sway over all the Finno-tataric popu- 
 lations of Great Russia; while they are advanc- 
 ing, among those of central Asia, up to the fron- 
 tiers of India on the south and to the Pacific
 
 VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 293 
 
 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 cer- 
 tainly permissible to suppose that it is the first race 
 which has furnished 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 
 languages 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-Aryan 
 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-
 
 294 THE ARYAN QUESTION. ti 
 
 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 Eomance modifications 
 of the language of Kome. With respect to the 
 original speakers of Greek and Latin, the unravel- 
 ling of the tangled ethnology of the Balkan penin- 
 sula and the ordering of the chaos of that of Italy 
 are enterprises upon which I do not propose to en- 
 ter. 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 an- 
 cient Greeks, who were a long-headed people; and 
 the Sphakiots of Crete, probably the purest repre- 
 sentatives of the old Hellenes in existence, are tall 
 and blond. But considering that Greek colonisa- 
 tion 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,
 
 VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 295 
 
 plundering and kidnapping, on both sides of the 
 -dEgean, 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 example 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 earher 
 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 repre- 
 sented in the oldest history of the Balkan penin- 
 sula, that tliey may be credited with the Aryan 
 languages spoken there. And it may be that the 
 tradition which peopled Phrygia with Thracians 
 represents a real movement of the Aryan race into 
 Asia Minor, such as that which in after years car- 
 ried 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
 
 296 THE ARYAN QUESTION. 71 
 
 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, fol- 
 lows a wash of Teutonic blood. The Latin dialects 
 arose, no one knows how, among the tribes of Cen- 
 tral Italy, encompassed on all sides by people of 
 the most various physical characters, who were 
 gradually absorbed into the eternally widening 
 maw of Eome, and there, by dint of using the 
 same speech, became the first example of that won- 
 derful ethnological hotch-potch miscalled the Latin 
 race. The only trustworthy guide here is archaeo- 
 logical investigation. A great advance will have 
 been made when the race characters of the pre- 
 historic people of the terramare (who are identified 
 by Helbig * 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 
 
 * Die Italiker in der Poebene, 1879. See for much 
 valuable information respecting the races of the Balkan 
 and Italic peninsulse, Zampa's essay " Vergleichende An- 
 thropologische Ethnographie von Apulien," Zeitschrift 
 fiir Ethnologie, xvlii., 1886.
 
 VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 297 
 
 Turkestan; that the Siah-posh and Galtehas of the 
 mountainous barrier between Turkestan and India 
 are such; and that the same characters obtain large- 
 ly among the Kurds on the western frontier of 
 Persia, at the present day. The Kurds and the 
 Galtehas 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 Finno-tataric peo- 
 ple 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 his- 
 torians, it is not improbable, I think, that we should 
 discover that, even in historical times, the area 
 occupied by the blond long-heads 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 
 hypothesis, that the blond long-heads once ex- 
 tended 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, ap- 
 pears to the contrary, it may have been in the 
 west, or in the east, or anywhere between the two.
 
 298 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 
 
 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 ex- 
 istence, 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 di- 
 verse languages of men were not brought suddenly 
 into existence, in order to frustrate the plans of 
 the audacious bricklayers of the plain of Shinar; 
 if this professedly historical statement is only an- 
 other " type," and primitive Aryan, like all other 
 languages, was built up by a secular process of de- 
 velopment, the blond long-heads, among whom it 
 grew into shape, must for ages have been, philo- 
 logically 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 
 juventus 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
 
 VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 299 
 
 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 difEerent 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 diiferent 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 Scan- 
 dinavia, or in northern Germany, or in northern 
 Kussia, 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 occu- 
 pied 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
 
 300 THE ARYAN QUESTION. "n 
 
 Eecent by geologists set in — we have to reckon 
 with a distribution of land and water, not only 
 very different from that which at present obtains 
 in northern F'urasia, 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 f.) 
 
 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. 
 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 Cas- 
 pian 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 rela- 
 tively insignificant channels. This state of things, 
 however, is comparatively modern. At no very dis- 
 tant period, the land of Asia Minor was continu- 
 ous 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
 
 VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 301 
 
 Black Sea. A vast extent of eastern Europe and 
 of western central Asia thus became a huge reser- 
 voir, the lowest part of the lip of which was prob- 
 ably 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 Bal- 
 kash, then much larger; and, probably, that of the 
 inland sea of Mongolia. At that time, the level 
 of the Sea of Aral stood at least 60 feet higher than 
 it does at present.* Instead of the separate Black, 
 Caspian, and Aral seas, there was one vast Ponto- 
 Aralian Mediterranean, which must have been pro- 
 longed into arms and fiords along the lower val- 
 leys 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 north- 
 ern coast of Asia, which everywhere shows signs of 
 recent slow upheaval, was situated far to the south 
 of its present position. The consequences of this 
 
 • This is proved by the old shore-marks on the hill 
 of Kashkanatao 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 
 
 state of things have an extremely important bear- 
 ing 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 cli- 
 matal limitations of the beech could not have ex- 
 isted, and if primitive Aryan goes back thus far, 
 the arguments 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 
 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 extension, space for its 
 development, under the most favourable condi- 
 tions, and free from any serious intrusion of for- 
 eign elements from Asia, was presented in north- 
 ern 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
 
 VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 303 
 
 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 re- 
 duced supply of water, and Balkash, Aral, and 
 Caspian gradually shrank to their present dimen- 
 sions. In the course of this process, the broad 
 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
 
 304 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 
 
 that now included between the Black Sea, the At- 
 lantic, 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 differentia- 
 tion; and, as adjacent tribes were probably influ- 
 enced by the same causes, it is reasonable to sup- 
 pose that, at any given region of the pe^-iphery the 
 process of differentiation, whether brought 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 develop- 
 ment 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 Lithu- 
 anian, Slavonian, Teutonic, or Celtic, in the north 
 and west; towards Thracian and Greek, in the 
 south-west; towards Armenian in the south; to- 
 wards 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 intensi- 
 fied in proportion to their isolation. No doubt, in 
 the centre and in other parts of the periphery of
 
 Ti THE ARYAN QUESTION. 305 
 
 the Aryan region, other dialectic groups made 
 their appearance; but whatever 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.* 
 
 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. 
 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 ele- 
 ments. 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 re- 
 gion 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 impinged 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 penin- 
 sula, about the earliest inhabitants of which we 
 know next to nothing. There are two ways to 
 
 * 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. 
 184
 
 306 THE ARYAN QUESTION. ti 
 
 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 col- 
 onised 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 supposition that the Indo- 
 Iranians migrated from Scandinavia. It supposes 
 that the blond long-heads, in what may be called 
 their nascent Aryan stage, that is before their dia- 
 lects had taken on the full Aryan characteristics, 
 were spread over a wide region which is, conven- 
 tionally, European; but which, from the point of 
 view of the physical geographer, is rather to be 
 regarded as a continuation 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.
 
 Ti THE ARYAN QUESTION. 307 
 
 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 archseologists 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 commence- 
 ment of the recent epoch has been brought to light. 
 
 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 noth- 
 ing of the use of metals; they possess domestic 
 animals and cultivated plants and live in houses of 
 simple construction.
 
 308 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 
 
 In some parts of Europe little advance seems 
 to have been made, even down to historical times. 
 But in Britain, France, Scandinavia, Germany, 
 Western Eussia, 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 in- 
 itial 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 archaeology, Nils- 
 son showed that, in the interments of the middle 
 age, bronze largely took the place of stone, and 
 that, only in the latest, was iron substituted for 
 bronze. Thus arose the generalisation of the oc- 
 currence of a regular succession of stages of cul- 
 ture, which were somewhat unfortunately denomi- 
 nated 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 contempo- 
 raneity in different localities) was made out, the 
 change from stone to bronze was ascribed to for- 
 eign, 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 * 
 
 * " Proved " is perhaps too strong a word. But the 
 evidence set forth by Dr. Much (Die Kupferzeit in Eu- 
 ropa, 1886) in favour of a copper stage of culture among 
 the inhabitants of the pile-dwellings is very weighty.
 
 ▼I THE ARYAN QUESTION. 309 
 
 for various parts of Europe and made it probable 
 for others, that though the old order of succes- 
 sion is correct it is incomplete, and that a copper 
 stage must be interpolated between the neolithic 
 and the bronze stages. Bronze is an artificial pro- 
 duct 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 they learned that the hardness and tough- 
 ness of their metal were immensely improved by 
 alloying it with a small quantity of tin, they for- 
 sook 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 manu- 
 facture 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 in- 
 troduction 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 N"euchatel and Bienne the history is con- 
 tinued through the stage of bronze to the begin- 
 ning of that of iron. And in all this long series of 
 remains, which lay bare the minutest details of
 
 310 THE ARYAN QUESTION". VI 
 
 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-dwell- 
 ings 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 tin show that they had 
 commercial intercourse with somewhat distant re- 
 gions. 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 culti- 
 vated plants and domesticated animals. But even 
 that argument does not necessarily take us be- 
 yond the limits of south-eastern Europe; and it 
 needs reconsideration in view of the changes of 
 physical geography and of climate to which I have 
 drawn attention. 
 
 In connection with this question there is an- 
 other important series of facts to be taken into 
 consideration. 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.
 
 in THE ARYAN QUESTION. 311 
 
 which had reached them by way of commerce; the 
 Ostiaks and the Tartars of Tom, alone, extracted 
 their iron from the ore. It was not until the in- 
 vaders reached the Lena, in the far east, that they 
 met with skilful smiths among the Jakuts,* who 
 manufactured knives, axes, lances, battle-axes, and 
 leather jerkins studded with iron; and among the 
 Tunguses and Lamuts, who had learned from the 
 Jakuts. 
 
 But there is an older chapter of Siberian his- 
 tory which was closed in the seventeenth century, 
 as that of the people of the pile-dwellings of Swit- 
 zerland had ended when the Komans entered Hel- 
 vetia. 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, ex- 
 tremely ancient, are attributed to a quasi-mythical 
 people, the Tschudes. These Tschudish kurgans 
 abound in copper and gold articles of use and lux- 
 ury, 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 
 
 • Andree, Die Metalle bei den Naturvolkern (p. 114). 
 It is interesting to note that the Jakuts have always been 
 pastoral nomads, formerly shepherds, now horse-breeders, 
 and that they continue to work their iron in the primi- 
 tive fashion; as the argument that metallurgic skill im- 
 plies settled agricultural life not unfrequently makes its 
 appearance.
 
 312 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 
 
 led the Russians to the rediscovery of the forgotten 
 stores of wealth. The race to which the Tschudes 
 belonged and the age of the works which testify 
 to their former existence, 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 per- 
 haps come down as late as the fifth century b. c, 
 the possibility that a knowledge of the technical 
 value of copper may have travelled from Siberia 
 westward 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 per- 
 fection, at least as high as that of the bronze stage, 
 six thousand years ago. But before the inter- 
 mediation of Etruscan, Phoenician, and Greek trad- 
 ers, 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 originators, the Acca- 
 dians? As matters stand, they are just as likely 
 to have been a group of the same race as the Egyp-
 
 TI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 313 
 
 tians, or the Dravidians, as anything else. And 
 <5onsidering that their culture developed in the ex- 
 treme 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. 
 
 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 bor- 
 rowing 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 sup- 
 posing 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 " palseo-metallic " stage, as it 
 might be called — appears to me to be demonstrated 
 in a remarkable manner by the remains of their 
 architecture. From the crannog to the elaborate
 
 314 THE ARYAN QUESTION. VI 
 
 pile-dwelling, and from the rudest enclosure to the 
 complex fortification of the terramare, there is an 
 advance which is obviously a native product. So 
 with the sepulchral constructions; the stone cist, 
 with or without a preservative, or memorial cairn, 
 grows into the chambered graves lodged in tumuli; 
 into such 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 be- 
 tween 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 My- 
 cenae, 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 accu- 
 mulated goes, the neolithic culture may have at- 
 tained its full development, copper may have 
 gradually come into use, and bronze may have suc- 
 ceeded copper, without foreign intervention. 
 
 So far as I am aware, every raw material em-
 
 Ti THE ARYAN QUESTION. 315 
 
 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 main- 
 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 Phoeni- 
 cian commerce had reached the remote shores of 
 the Tyrrhene Sea. 
 
 Can it be safely concluded that the palseo- 
 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 primi- 
 tire Aryans, deduced from philological data, close- 
 ly corresponds with that which obtained among 
 the pile-dwellers in the neolithic stage. But the 
 resemblance of the early stages of civilisation
 
 316 THE ARYAN QUESTION. Tl 
 
 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 
 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.* 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 through- 
 
 * Professor Virchow has guardedly expressed the opin- 
 ion that the oldest inhabitants of the Swiss pile-dwell- 
 ings were broad-heads, and that later on (commencing 
 before the bronze stage) there was a gradual infusion of 
 long-heads among them {Zeitschrift fiir Ethnologie, 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.
 
 n . THE ARYAN QUESTION. 317 
 
 out the Keeent period: that only the former two 
 at first inhabited our islands; but that a mixed 
 race of tall broad-heads, like some of the Black- 
 foresters of the present day, so excellently ie- 
 scribed by Eeker, migrated from the continent and 
 formed that tall contingent of the population 
 which has been identified (rightly or wrongly) 
 with the BelgaB 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 palaso-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 
 western Switzerland, on the other hand, at La 
 Tene, and elsewhere, similar relics show that the 
 Gauls followed upon the latest population of the 
 pile-dwellings among whom traces of Etruscan in- 
 fluence (though not of dominion) are to be found. 
 Helbig supposes the terramare people to have been
 
 318 THE ARYAN QUESTION. vi 
 
 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, what 
 Aryan language can the people of the pile-dwell- 
 ings have spoken? * 
 
 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 do- 
 mestic animals and have left no sign that they 
 cultivated plants. In many localities there is evi- 
 dence that a very considerable interval — the so- 
 called hiatus — intervened between the time when 
 the Quaternary or paleolithic men occupied par- 
 
 • 8ee Dr. Munro's excellent work, The Lake Dwellings 
 of Europe, for La T6ne. Readers of Professor Rhye' re- 
 cent articles {Scottish Review, 1890) may suggest that the 
 pile-dwelling people spoke the Gaedhelic form of Celtic, 
 and the Gauls the Brythonic form.
 
 Ti THE ARYAN QUESTION. 319 
 
 ticular caves and river basins and the accumula- 
 tion of the debris left by their neolithic successors. 
 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 Quaternary and the 
 Recent populations — that the Quaternary popula- 
 tion followed the retreating ice northwards and 
 left behind them a desert which remained unpeo- 
 pled for ages. Other high authorities, on the con- 
 trary, 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 evi- 
 dence for neither view is worth much. Certainly 
 that is the result of my own cogitations with re- 
 gard 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 quater- 
 nary quadrupeds; no doubt, if the bones and skulls 
 in question were not human, their contemporaneity 
 would hardly have been questioned. But, since 
 they are human, the demand for further evidence 
 really need not be ascribed to mere conservative
 
 320 THE ARYAN QUESTION. Tl 
 
 prejudice. Because the human biped differs from 
 all other bipeds and quadrupeds, in the tendency 
 to put his dead out of sight in various ways; com- 
 monly by burial. It is a habit worthy of all respect 
 in itself, but generative of subtle traps and griev- 
 ous pitfalls for the unwary 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 Wed- 
 nesday; and yet the interment 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 trust- 
 worthy. 
 
 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 im- 
 portance could put forth plausible speculations
 
 n THE ARYAN QUESTION. 321 
 
 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, 
 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 remark- 
 able cranium is no more than a strongly-marked 
 example of a type which occurs, not only among 
 other prehistoric men, but is met with, sporadic- 
 ally, among the moderns; and that, after all, I was. 
 not so wrong as I ought to have been, when I in- 
 dicated such points of similarity among the skulls 
 found in our river-beds and among the native races 
 of Australia.* 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 
 highly-competent observers, Messrs. Fraipont and 
 Lohest, the one an anatomist, the other a geolo- 
 gist, furnished us with evidence such as will bear 
 
 • See p. 202 of this volume. 
 185
 
 322 THE ARYAN QUESTION. n 
 
 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 little 
 room for doubt that the men of Spy fabricated 
 the palaeolithic implements, and were the contem- 
 poraries of the characteristic quaternary quadru- 
 peds, found with them. The anatomical charac- 
 ters of the skeletons bear out conclusions which are 
 not flattering to the appearance of the owners. 
 They were short of stature but powerfully 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 back- 
 wards, in consequence of the absence of that espe- 
 cially characteristic feature of the higher type of 
 man, the chin prominence. Thus these skulls are 
 not only eminently " Neanderthaloid," 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 struc-
 
 VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 323 
 
 ture of the man of Spy, he possessed a greater number of 
 pithecoid characters than any other race of mankind.* 
 
 And after enumerating these he continues: 
 
 The other and much more numerous characters of the 
 skull, of 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 be- 
 tween men and apes " f and " that the fossil re- 
 mains 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." X 
 
 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: 
 
 * Fraipont et Lohest. " La Race humaine de Neander- 
 thal, ou de Canstatt, en Belgique," Archives de Biologie, 
 1886. 
 
 t See p. 204 supra. % Ibid, p. 208.
 
 324 THE ARYAN QUESTION. n 
 
 The distance which separates the man of Spy from the 
 modern anthropoid ape is undoubtedly enormous; be- 
 tween 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 exist- 
 ing races have sprung, he has travelled a very great way. 
 
 From the data now obtained, it is permissible to believe 
 that 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.* 
 
 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- 
 
 •" 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? " — P. 208 supra.
 
 VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 325 
 
 ciently sapient to speak or not; * 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 
 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 develop- 
 ment 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 geo- 
 graphical distribution of mammals have their spe- 
 cial kinds of men; and, though this doctrine can- 
 not be made good to the extent which Agassiz main- 
 tained, yet the limitation of the Australian type 
 to New Holland,! the approximate restriction of 
 
 • I am perplexed by the importance attached by some 
 to the presence or absence of the so-called " genial " eleva- 
 tions. 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? 
 
 [t Unless I am right in extending it to Hindostan and 
 even further west. — 1894.]
 
 326 THE AKYAN QUESTION, vi 
 
 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 distribution 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 
 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 author- 
 ity 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
 
 VI THE ARYAN QUESTION. 327 
 
 complexion the Frisians fulfilled expectation; Lut 
 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- 
 derthal and Spy type.* 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 indi- 
 cation of the physiological continuity of the blond 
 long-heads with the pleistocene Neanderthaloid 
 men. But this continuity may have been brought 
 about in two ways. The blond long-heads may 
 exhibit one of the Hnes 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 oc- 
 cupied a considerable area in Western Europe. 
 The same alternatives present themselves when 
 
 •Virchow Beitrdge zur physischen Anthropologie der 
 Deutschcn {Abh. der Koniglichen Akademie der Wissert- 
 schaften zu Berlin, 1876). See particularly p. 238 for the 
 full recognition of the Neanderthaloid characters of 
 Frisian skulls and of the ethnological significance of the 
 eimilarity.
 
 ^8 THE ARYAN QUESTION. n 
 
 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 remark- 
 able similarity of the skulls of certain tribes of na- 
 tive Australians to the Neanderthal skull; and I 
 may add, that the wide differences in height be- 
 tween the skulls of different tribes of Australians 
 afford a parallel to the differences in altitude be- 
 tween the skulls of the men of Spy and those of the 
 grave rows of Xorth Germany. Neanderthaloid 
 features are to be met with, not only in ancient 
 long skulls; those of the ancient broad-headed peo- 
 ple entombed at Borreby in Denmark have been 
 often noted. 
 
 Eeckoned 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 Neanderthaloia 
 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 pres- 
 ent day, ever widens as we learn more about the
 
 ▼X THE ARYAN QUESTION. 329 
 
 events which bridge it. And, if the differences be- 
 tween the Neanderthaloid men and ourselves could 
 be divided into as many parts as that time con- 
 tains centuries, the progress from part to part 
 would probably be almost imperceptible. 
 
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