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.
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.]