Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/511

Rh sub-class Archencephala is to be retained, it must depend on differences in degree, as, for example, the vast increase of the brain in Man, as compared with that of the highest ape, 'in absolute size, and the still greater superiority in relative size to the bulk and weight of the body.'

If we ask why this character, though well known to Cuvier and other great anatomists before our time, was not considered by them to entitle Man, physically considered, to claim a more distinct place in the group called Primates, than that of a separate order, or, according to others, a separate genus or family only, we shall find the answer thus concisely stated by Professor Huxley in his new work, before cited:— 'So far as I am aware, no human cranium belonging to an adult man has yet been observed with a less cubical capacity than 62 cubic inches, the smallest cranium observed in any race of men, by Morton, measuring 63 cubic inches; while on the other hand, the most capacious gorilla skull yet measured has a content of not more than 34 cubic inches. Let us assume, for simplicity's sake, that the lowest man's skull has twice the capacity of the highest gorilla's. No doubt this is a very striking difference, but it loses much of its apparent, systematic value, when viewed by the light of certain other equally indubitable facts respecting cranial capacities.

'The first of these is, that the difference in the volume of the cranial cavity of different races of mankind is far greater, absolutely, than that between the lowest man and the highest ape while, relatively, it is about the same; for the largest human skull measured by Morton contained 114 cubic inches, that is to say, had very nearly double the capacity of the smallest, while its absolute preponderance of over 50 cubic inches is far greater than that by which the lowest