THE  CANADIAN  JOURNAL.

                   NEW  SERIES.

        No.  XCIL — OCTOBER,  1876.
 

BRAIN-WEIGHT AND SIZE IN RELATION TO

       RELATIVE CAPACITY OF RACES.
 

BY DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., F.R.S.E.
 

   Bead before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at Buffalo, N. Y.

                       %5th August, 1876.



  Consistently with the recognition of the brain as the organ of intel¬

lectual activity, it seems not unnatural  to assume for man, as the

rational animal, a very distinctive cerebral development.   One of the

most distinguished of living naturalists, Professor Owen, has even

made this organ the basis of a  system of classification, by means of

which he separates man into a sub-class distinct from all other mam¬

malia.  But while a comparison  between man and the  anthropoid

apes, as the animals most nearly approximating  to him in physical

structure, lends confirmation to the idea not only that  a well de¬

veloped brain is essential to natural activity, but that there is a close

relation between the development  of the brain and the manifestation

of intellectual power: the distinctive features in the human brain,

as compared with  those of the anthropomorpha, prove to be greatly-

less than  had been assumed under imperfect knowledge.  The sub¬

stantial difference is in volume.  " No one, I presume," says Darwin,

" doubts that the large size of the brain in man, relatively to his body,

in comparison  to that of the gorilla or orang, is closely connected

with his higher mental powers;" * and it might not unfairly be rea¬

soned from analogy, that the same test distinguishes  the intellectual
 

* " The Descent of Man," Part >L, chap, iv,