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 civilised man with the animal
world, one is as the Alpine traveller, who sees the mountains soaring
into the sky and can hardly discern where the deep shadowed crags and
roseate peaks end, and where the clouds of heaven begin. Surely the
awe-struck voyager may be excused if, at first, he refuses to believe
the geologist, who tells him that these glorious masses are, after all,
the hardened mud of primeval seas, or the cooled slag of 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 reverence and our wonder, adds all the force
of intellectual sublimity to the mere aesthetic intuition of the
uninstructed beholder.
And after passion and prejudice have died away, the same result will
attend the teachings of the naturalist respecting that great Alps
and Andes of the living world--Man. Our reverence for the nobility of
manhood will not be lessened by the knowledge that Man is, in substance
and in structure, one with the brutes; for, he alone possesses the
marvellous endowment of intelligible and rational speech, whereby,
in the secular period of his existence, he has slowly accumulated and
organized the experience which is almost wholly lost with the cessation
of every individual life in other animals; so that now he stands raised
upon it as on a mountain top, far above the level of his humble fellows,
and transfigured from his grosser nature by reflecting, here and there,
a ray from the infinite source of truth.
'A succinct History of the Controversy respecting the Cerebral Structure
of Man and the Apes.'
UP to the year 1857 all anatomists of authority, who had occupied
themselves with the cerebral structure of the Apes--Cuvier, Tiedemann,
Sandifort, Vrolik, Isidore G. St. Hilaire, Schroeder van der Kolk,
Gratiolet--were agreed that the brain of the Apes possesses a POSTERIOR
LOBE.
Tiedemann, in 1825, figured and acknowledged in the text of his 'Icones'
the existence of the POSTERIOR CORNU of the lateral ventricle in
the Apes, not only under the title of 'Scrobiculus parvus loco cornu
posterioris'--a fact which has been paraded--but as 'cornu posterius'
('Icones', p. 54), a circumstance which has been, as sedulously, kept in
the background.
Cuvier ('Lecons', T. iii. p. 103) says, "the anterior or lateral
ventricles possess a digital cavity [posterior cornu] only in Man and
the Apes...its presence depends on that of the posterior lobes."
Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik, and Gratiolet, had also figured and
described the posterior cornu in various Apes. As to the HIPPOCAMPUS
MINOR Tiedemann had erroneously asserted its absence in the Apes; but
Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik had pointed out the existence of what
they considered a rudimentary one in the Chimpanzee, and Gratiolet had
expressly affirmed its existence in these animals. Such was the state of
our information on these subjects in the year 1856.
In the year 1857, however, Professor Owen, either in ignorance of these
well-known facts or else unjustifiably suppressing them, submitted to
the Linnaean Society a paper "On the Characters, Principles of Division,
and Primary Groups of the Class Mammalia," which was printed in the
Society's Journal, and contains the following passage:--"In Man,
the brain presents an ascensive step in development, higher and
more strongly marked than that by which the preceding sub-class
was distinguished from the one below it. Not only do the cerebral
hemispheres overlap and the olfactory lobes and cerebellum, but they
extend in advance of the one and further back than the other. The
posterior development is so marked, that anatomists have assigned to
that part the character of a third lobe; 'it is peculiar to the
genus Homo, and equally peculiar is the posterior horn of the lateral
ventricle and the 'hippocampus minor,' which characterise the hind
lobe of each hemisphere'."--'Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnaean
Society, Vol. ii. p. 19.
As the essay in which this passage stands had no less ambitious an aim
than the remodelling of the classification of the Mammalia, its
author might be supposed to have written under a sense of peculiar
responsibility, and to have tested, with especial care, the statements
he ventured to promulgate. And even if this be expecting too much,
hastiness, or want of opportunity for due deliberation, cannot now be
pleaded in extenuation of any shortcomings; for the propositions cited
were repeated two years afterwards in the Reade Lecture, delivered
before so grave a body as the University of Cambridge, in 1859.
When the assertions, which I have italicised in the above extract,
first came under my notice, I was not a little astonished at so flat a
contradiction of the doctrines current among well-informed anatomists;
but, not unnaturally imagining that the deliberate statements of a
responsible person must have some foundation in fact, I deemed it my
duty to investigate the subject anew before the time at which it
would be my business to lecture thereupon came round. The result of my
inquiries was to prove that Mr. Owen's three assertions, that "the third
lobe, the posterior horn of the lateral ventricle, and the hippocampus
minor," are "pecular to the genus 'Homo'," are contrary to the plainest
facts. I communicated this conclusion to the students of my class;
and then, having no desire to embark in a controversy which could not
redound to the honour of British science, whatever its issue, I turned
to more congenial occupations.
The time speedily arrived, however, when a persistence in this reticence
would have involved me in an unworthy paltering with truth.
At the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, in 1860, Professor
Owen repeated these assertions in my presence, and, of course, I
immediately gave them a direct and unqualified contradiction, pledging
myself to justify that unusual procedure elsewhere. I redeemed that
pledge by publishing, in the January number of the 'Natural History
Review' for 1861, an article wherein the truth of the three following
propositions was fully demonstrated (l. c. p. 71):--
"1. That the third lobe is neither peculiar to, nor characteristic of,
man, seeing that it exists in all the higher quadrumana."
"2. That the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle is neither
peculiar to, nor characteristic of, man, inasmuch as it also exists in
the higher quadrumana."
"3. That the 'hippocampus minor' is neither pecular to, nor
characteristic of, man, as it is found in certain of the higher
quadrumana."
Furthermore, this paper contains the following paragraph (p. 76): "And
lastly, Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik (op. cit. p. 271), though they
particularly note that 'the lateral ventricle is distinguished from that
of Man by the very defective proportions of the posterior cornu, wherein
only a stripe is visible as an indication of the hippocampus minor;' yet
the Figure 4, in their second Plate, shows that this posterior cornu is
a perfectly distinct and unmistakeable structure, quite as large as it
often is in Man. It is the more remarkable that Professor Owen should
have overlooked the explicit statement and figure of these authors, as
it is quite obvious, on comparison of the figures, that his woodcut of
the brain of a Chimpanzee (l. c. p. 19) is a reduced copy of the second
figure of Messrs. Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik's first Plate.
"As M. Gratiolet (l. c. p. 18), however is careful to remark,
'unfortunately the brain which they have taken as a model was greatly
altered (profondement affaisse), whence the general form of the brain
is given in these plates in a manner which is altogether incorrect.'
Indeed, it is perfectly obvious, from a comparison of a section of the
skull of the Chimpanzee with these figures, that such is the case; and
it is greatly to be regretted that so inadequate a figure should have
been taken as a typical representation of the Chimpanzee's brain."
From this time forth, the untenability of his position might have been
as apparent to Professor Owen as it was to every one else; but, so far
from retracting the grave errors into which he had fallen, Professor
Owen has persisted in and reiterated them; first, in a lecture delivered
before the Royal Institution on the 19th of March, 1861, which is
admitted to have been accurately reproduced in the 'Athenaeum' for the
23rd of the same month, in a letter addressed by Professor Owen to that
journal on the 30th of March. The 'Athenaeum report was accompanied by
a diagram purporting to represent a Gorilla's brain, but in reality so
extraordinary a misrepresentation, that Professor Owen substantially,
though not explicitly, withdraws it in the letter in question. In
amending this error, however, Professor Owen fell into another of
much graver import, as his communication concludes with the following
paragraph: "For the true proportion in which the cerebrum covers the
cerebellum in the highest Apes, reference should be made to the figure
of the undissected brain of the Chimpanzee in my 'Reade's Lecture on the
Classification, etc., of the Mammalia', p. 25, fig. 7, 8 vo. 1859."
It would not be credible, if it were not unfortunately true, that this
figure, to which the trusting public is referred, without a word of
qualification, "for the true proportion in which the cerebrum covers the
cerebellum in the highest Apes," is exactly that unacknowledged copy of
Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik's figure whose utter inaccuracy had
been pointed out years before by Gratiolet, and had been brought to
Professor Owen's knowledge by myself in the passage of my article in the
'Natural History Review' above quoted.
I drew public attention to this circumstance again in my reply to
Professor Owen, published in the 'Athenaeum' for April 13th, 1861; but
the exploded figure was reproduced once more by Professor Owen, without
the slightest allusion to its inaccuracy, in the 'Annals of Natural
History' for June 1861!
This proved too much for the patience of the original authors of the
figure, Messrs. Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik, who, in a note
addressed to the Academy of Amsterdam, of which they were members,
declared themselves to be, though decided opponents of all forms of the
doctrine of progressive development, above all things, lovers of truth:
and that, therefore, at whatever risk of seeming to lend support to
views which they disliked, they felt it their duty to take the first
opportunity of publicly repudiating Professor Owen's misuse of their
authority.
In this note they frankly admitted the justice of the criticisms of
M. Gratiolet, quoted above, and they illustrated, by new and careful
figures, the posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and the hippocampus
minor of the Orang. Furthermore, having demonstrated the parts, at
one of the sittings of the Academy, they add, "la presence des parties
contestees y a ete universellement reconnue par les anatomistes presents
a la seance. Le seul doute qui soit reste se rapporte au pes Hippocampi
minor.... A l'etat frais l'indice du petit pied d'Hippocampe etait plus
prononce que maintenant."
Professor Owen repeated his erroneous assertions at the meeting of the
British Association in 1861, and again, without any obvious necessity,
and without adducing a single new fact or new argument, or being able
in any way to meet the crushing evidence from original dissections of
numerous Apes' brains, which had in the meanwhile been brought forward
by Prof. Rolleston, [8] F.R.S., Mr. Marshall, [9] F.R.S., Mr. Flower,
[10] Mr. Turner, [11] and myself, [12] revived the subject at the
Cambridge meeting of the same body in 1862. Not content with the
tolerably vigorous repudiation which these unprecedented proceedings
met with in Section D, Professor Owen sanctioned the publication of
a version of his own statements, accompanied by a strange
misrepresentation of mine (as may be seen by comparison of the 'Times'
report of the discussion), in the 'Medical Times' for October 11th,
1862. I subjoin the conclusion of my reply in the same journal for
October 25th.
"If this were a question of opinion, or a question of interpretation of
parts or of terms,--were it even a question of observation in which
the testimony of my own senses alone was pitted against that of another
person, I should adopt a very different tone in discussing this matter.
I should, in all humility, admit the likelihood of having myself erred
in judgment, failed in knowledge, or been blinded by prejudice.
"But no one pretends now, that the controversy is one of the terms or
of opinions. Novel and devoid of authority as some of Professor Owen's
proposed definitions may have been, they might be accepted without
changing the great features of the case. Hence though special
investigations into these matters have been undertaken during the last
two years by Dr. Allen Thomson, by Dr. Rolleston, by Mr. Marshall,
and by Mr. Flower, all, as you are aware, anatomists of repute in this
country, and by Professors Schroeder Van der Kolk, and Vrolik (whom
Professor Owen incautiously tried to press into his own service) on
the Continent, all these able and conscientious observers have with
one accord testified to the accuracy of my statements, and to the utter
baselessness of the assertions of Professor Owen. Even the venerable
Rudolph Wagner, whom no man will accuse of progressionist proclivities,
has raised his voice on the same side; while not a single anatomist,
great or small, has supported Professor Owen.
"Now, I do not mean to suggest that scientific differences should be
settled by universal suffrage, but I do conceive that solid proofs must
be met by something more than empty and unsupported assertions. Yet
during the two years through which this preposterous controversy has
dragged its weary length, Professor Owen has not ventured to bring
forward a single preparation in support of his often-repeated
assertions.
"The case stands thus, therefore:--Not only are the statements made by
me in consonance with the doctrines of the best older authorities,
and with those of all recent investigators, but I am quite ready to
demonstrate them on the first monkey that comes to hand; while Professor
Owen's assertions are not only in diametrical opposition to both old
and new authorities, but he has not produced, and, I will add, cannot
produce, a single preparation which justifies them"
I now leave this subject, for the present.--For the credit of my
calling I should be glad to be, hereafter, for ever silent upon it. But,
unfortunately, this is a matter upon which, after all that has occurred,
no mistake or confusion of terms is possible--and in affirming that the
posterior lobe, the posterior cornu, and the hippocampus minor exist in
certain Apes, I am stating either that which is true, or that which
I must know to be false. The question has thus become one of personal
veracity. For myself, I will accept no other issue than this, grave as
it is, to the present controversy.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: It will be 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.
[Footnote 2: We are not at present thoroughly acquainted with the brain
of the Gorilla, and therefore, in discussing cerebral characters, I
shall take that of the Chimpanzee as my highest term among the Apes.]
[Footnote 3: "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.--'Oeuvres 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.]
[Footnote 4: It has been affirmed that Hindoo crania sometimes contain
as little as 27 ounces of water, which would give a capacity of about
46 cubic inches. The minimum capacity which I have assumed above,
however, is based upon the valuable tables published by Professor R.
Wagner in his "Vorstudien zu einer wissenschaftlichen Morphologie und
Physiologie des menschlichen Gehirns." 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, consisting for the most part of male brains, exceed 1400
grammes. The lightest brain of an adult male, with sound mental
faculties, recorded by Wagner, weighed 1020 grammes. As a gramme equals
15.4 grains, and a cubic inch of water 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 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 (55.3 cubic
inches of water); and Reid gives an adult female brain of still smaller
capacity. The heaviest brain (1872 grammes, or about 115 cubic inches)
was, however, that of a woman; next to it comes the brain of Cuvier
(1861 grammes), then Byron (1807 grammes), and then an insane person
(1783 grammes). The lightest adult brain recorded (720 grammes) was
that of an idiotic female. The brains of five children, four years old,
weighed between 1275 and 992 grammes. So that it may be safely said,
that an average European child of four years old has a brain twice as
large as that of an adult Gorilla.]
[Footnote 5: In speaking of the foot of his "Pygmie," Tyson remarks,
p. 13:-- "But this part in the formation and in its function too, being
liker a Hand than a Foot: for the distinguishing this sort of animals
from others, I have thought whether it might not be reckoned and called
rather Quadru-manus than Quadrupes, 'i.e.' a four-handed rather than a
four-footed animal."]
[Footnote 6: I say 'help' to furnish: for I by no means believe that
it was any original difference of cerebral quality, or quantity which
caused that divergence between the human and the pithecoid stirpes,
which has ended in the present enormous gulf between them. It is
no doubt perfectly true, in a certain sense, that all difference of
function is a result of difference of structure; or, in other words, of
difference in the combination of the primary molecular forces of
living substance; and, starting from this undeniable axiom, objectors
occasionally, and with much seeming plausibility, argue that the vast
intellectual chasm between the Ape and Man implies a corresponding
structural chasm in the organs of the intellectual functions; so that,
it is said, the non-discovery of such vast differences proves, not that
they are absent, but that Science is incompetent to detect them. A very
little consideration, however, will, I think, show the fallacy of this
reasoning. Its validity hangs upon the assumption, that intellectual
power depends altogether on the brain--whereas the brain is only one
condition out of many on which intellectual manifestations depend;
the others being, chiefly, the organs of the senses and the motor
apparatuses, especially those which are concerned in prehension and in
the production of articulate speech.]
[Footnote 7: 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 Essay "On the Characters,
etc., of the Class Mammalia," in the 'Journal of the Proceedings of the
Linnean Society of London' for 1857, but is unaccountably omitted in the
"Reade Lecture" delivered before the University of Cambridge two years
later, which is otherwise nearly a reprint of the paper in question.
Prof. Owen writes: "Not being able to appreciate or conceive of the
distinction between the psychical phenomena of a Chimpanzee, and of a
Boschisman or of an Aztec, with arrested brain growth, as being of a
nature so essential as to preclude a comparison between them, or as
being other than a difference of degree, I cannot shut my eyes to the
significance of that all-pervading similitude of structure--every tooth,
every bone, strictly homologous--which makes the determination of the
difference between 'Homo' and 'Pithecus' the anatomist's difficulty."
Surely it is a little singular, that the 'anatomist,' who finds it
'difficult' to 'determine the difference' between 'Homo' and 'Pithecus',
should yet range them on anatomical grounds, in distinct sub-classes!]
[Footnotes 8: On the Affinities of the Brain of the Orang. 'Nat. Hist.
Review', April, 1861.]
[Footnotes 9: On the Brain of a young Chimpanzee. 'Ibid.', July, 1861.]
[Footnotes 10: On the Posterior lobes of the Cerebrum of the Quadrumana.
'Philosophical Transactions', 1862.]
[Footnotes 11: On the anatomical Relations of the Surfaces of the
Tentorium to the Cerebrum and Cerebellum in Man and the lower Mammals.
'Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh', March, 1862.]
[Footnotes 12: On the Brain of Ateles. 'Proceedings of Zoological
Society', 1861.]