growth; and I have therefore commenced my experiments with this
period of life. I am aware that it cannot be as safely assumed for
the nations who inhabit the frigid and temperate zones, as for some
inter-tropical races — the Hindoos, Arab-Egyptians, and Negroes, for
example; for these people are proverbially known to reach the adult
age, both physically and morally, long before the inhabitants of more
northern climates. But, if the average period of the full development
of the brain could he ascertained in all the races, it would, perhaps,
not greatly vary from the age of sixteen years.
It |s evident that this age cannot be always positively determined
in the dried skull; yet by a careful comparison of the teeth and
sutures, in connection with the general development of the cranial
structure, I have had little difficulty in keeping within the prescribed
limit.
In classing these skulls into the two sexes, I have been in part
governed by positive data; hut in the greater number this question
has been proximately determined by merely comparing the development
and conformation of the cranial structure.
I have excluded from the Table the crania of idiots, dwarfs, and
those of persons whose heads have been enlarged or otherwise modified
by any obvious morbid condition. So, also, no note has been
taken of individuals who blend dissimilar races, as the mulatto, for
example — the offspring of the Caucasian and the Negro. Those
instances, however, which present a mixture of two divisions of the
same great race, are admitted into the Table. Such is the modem
Eellah of the Valley of the Nile, in whom the intrusive Arab is
engrafted on the Old Egyptian.
The measurements comprised in this Memoir have been derived,
without exception, from skulls in my own collection, in order that
their accuracy may at any time be tested by myself or by others. I
have also great satisfaction in stating, that all these measurements
have been made with my own hands. I at one time employed a
person to assist me; but having detected some errors in his numbers,
I have been at the pains to revise them all, and can now therefore
vouch for the accuracy of these multitudinous data.
My collection at this time embraces [*] human crania, among which,
however, the different races are very unequally represented. Nor has
it been possible, for reasons already mentioned, to subject the entire
series to the adopted measurement. Again, some of these are too
much broken for this purpose; while many others are embalmed
heads, which cannot be measured, on account of the presence of
bitumen or of desiccated tissues. * * * * *
[* In May, 1851, about 887 skulls (US. addenda to Catalogue of 1849). Since augmented
by one or tw« dozen. — G. R. G.]
[ M A N U SC R I P T B . ]
(Origin of the Hiiman Species.)
Before proceeding to an analysis of these materials, I purpose to
make a very few remarks on the origin of the Human Species as a
zoological question, and one inseparably associated with classification
in Ethnology.
After twenty years of observation and reflection, during which
period I have always approached this subject with diffidence and
caution; after investigating for myself the remarkable diversities of
opinion to which it has given rise, and after weighing the difficulties
that beset it on every side, I can find no satisfactory explanation of
the diverse phenomena that characterize physical Man, excepting in
the doctrine of an original plurality of races. ,,
The commonly received opinion teaches, that all mankind have
been derived from a primeval p air; and that the differences now
observable among the several races, result from the operation of two
principal causes:
1, The influence of climate, locality, civilization, and other physical
and moral agents, acting through long periods of time. The manifest
inadequacy of this hypothesis, led the late learned and lamented
Dr. Prichard to offer the following ingenious explanation.
2. The diversities among mankind are mainly attributable to the
rise of accidental varieties, which, from their isolated position and
exclusive intermarriage, have rendered their peculiar traits permanent
among themselves, or, in other words, indelible among succeeding
generations of the same stock;
The preceding propositions, more or less modified and blended
together, are by many ethnologists regarded as adequate to the explanation
of all the phenomena of diversity observable in Man.
If; however, we were to be guided in this inquiry solely by the
evidence derived from Nature, whether directly, in the study of man
himself, or collaterally by comparison with the other divisions of the
zoological series, our conclusions might be altogether different: we
would he led to infer that our species had its origin not in one, but
in many creations; that these were widely distributed into those
localities upon the earth’s surface as were best adapted to their peculiar'wants#
and physical constitutions; and that, in the lapse of time,
these races, diverging from their primitive centres, met and amalgamated,
and have thus given rise to those intermediate links of organization
which now connect the extremes together.*
* The doctrine of a plurality of original creations for the human family, is by no means
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