1 (return) [ 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.
2 (return) [ 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.]
3 (return) [ "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.]
4 (return) [ 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.]
5 (return) [ 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."]
6 (return) [ 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.]
7 (return) [ 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!]
8 (return) [ On the Affinities of the Brain of the Orang. 'Nat. Hist. Review', April, 1861.]
9 (return) [ On the Brain of a young Chimpanzee. 'Ibid.', July, 1861.]
10 (return) [ On the Posterior lobes of the Cerebrum of the Quadrumana. 'Philosophical Transactions', 1862.]
11 (return) [ 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.]
12 (return) [ On the Brain of Ateles. 'Proceedings of Zoological Society', 1861.]