CHAPTER XI. Human At Last

HUMAN AT LAST

THE BRAIN OF PREHISTORIC MAN

Those individual characteristics which distinguish the orang, chimpanzee, and gorilla may be easily recognized. Yet, notwithstanding their striking differences, these animals all belong to the same family, called the Simiidæ. As a family this was and still remains the highest in the ape world. All of the great apes manifest certain pronounced manlike tendencies. Up to this point they were progressive, but beyond it they did not go. They were not equipped to reach the upper footholds or to gain the vast plateaus on the top of the world. This last achievement remained for another, who, being freed from many simian restrictions, had already outstripped the anthropoids.

Human Superiority

As a machine, this newcomer in the animal world was more effective than any of his forerunners. His human superiority was not due to higher speed, greater strength, or better staying powers. Many of his animal competitors could far outdistance him, could easily overpower him, could surpass him in endurance. He did, however, have an exceptional advantage. He was able to combine these essential qualities with many others in a variety of ways and thus gain an ultimate supremacy. In the end it was better brain power that raised man above his lower contemporaries and set him on his path toward human success. This new power of his did not come all at once. It needed the steady effort of ages to reach its present development. Compared with the existence of other species, the human race is relatively young. In point of geologic time so also is the human brain. Many students are agreed that temporally and in other respects our brain has scarcely outgrown its childhood. The brain power of to-day may require further ages of development to attain its highest possibilities.

When man first appeared on earth he had much in common with the great apes. Although not descended from them, he had inherited with them many qualities from a common ancestor. It is now settled beyond question that in earliest times the human brain possessed all of the basic patterns and mechanisms still to be found in the gorilla, the chimpanzee, and the orang. It had one fundamental advantage that greatly improved its capacity for developing its power. Expansion was the secret of this advantage. It was apparent in all parts of the superbrain, but most prominent in the department of the highest mental faculties, the frontal lobe. We may discern this great advance at a glance by comparing the sloping, narrow foreheads of the great apes with the high and prominent brow of man. The frontal lobe gradually pushed forward over the eyes, and in consequence the forehead slowly rose above them. It seems fair to say that as the brow grew higher through successive stages the race gradually rose in humanity. We are still much in the dark concerning the early phases of this slow rise to power. Some of the stages, it is probable, we shall never know. On the other hand, a large number of human fossils have been found during the past century. From these it is possible to decipher what the human brain must have been like at certain critical periods of man’s long journey. The brain, like all other soft parts of the body, disappears in time after death. How is it possible, therefore, to speak about the brains of men long since dead, or of races long ago extinct?

The Fossil Records of Man

It is true that only the bones of ancient peoples remain to tell us what they were like. Many of these bones have become fossilized by impregnation with minerals and are, so to speak, turned into stone. Thus they make an enduring record of man’s bony framework. From these petrified bones we can read many things about the people of the past to whom they belonged. We can measure their height, determine the manner in which they held their bodies in walking, and estimate their muscular strength. We may even rebuild their bodies about their skeletons by using certain standard measurements and so gain a fair idea of what these men must have looked like when alive. From the shape of the head it is possible to decide whether the jaw was massive and protruding, or of modern type; whether the cheek bones were heavy and prominent or relatively inconspicuous; whether the forehead was low and receding or high and broad; whether the nose was flattened or had a high nasal bridge; whether the chin was weakly developed or large and firm; whether the brain case was small, round, and narrow, or long, high vaulted, and capacious.

Brain Casts of Extinct Races of Men

Many other characters of extinct races may be determined by means of exact measurement. So much has already been accomplished in this way that it is possible to reproduce a reasonable facsimile of races that vanished long ago. It is possible also to reproduce a reasonable likeness of their brains. Reproductions of this kind depend upon the use of the fossil skulls as molds from which plaster of Paris casts are made. Upon the inner surface of the skull the brain makes certain definite impressions. It leaves grooves in the bone where great arteries run. It shows deep indentations caused by the convolutions. It contains other landmarks indicating the size and position of certain prominent features in the brain. These casts do not show the brain characters in all their sharp details because within the skull the brain is covered by three layers of membranes and surrounded by a thin jacket of fluid. In consequence, all of the prominent characters, although easily recognized, are somewhat veiled. It is for this reason that we are unable to detect every coil and groove in a brain cast of a fossil skull. We may, however, discern many important features and thus form an accurate estimate concerning the brain characters of several prehistoric races of man. Many casts of this kind are now available for study.

It is probable that a number of distinct species of prehistoric races have passed away leaving no trace of themselves. Even the bones of man’s body gradually crumble into dust unless, by some fortuitous circumstance, they are slowly converted into stone through the deposit of mineral salts. It seems likely that only a few of man’s skeletal remains have been preserved for us in this manner. By far the vast majority have gone the way of all flesh and most bones. The few precious relics that we thus far have had the good fortune to discover are treasured as rare possessions. They tell us in a somewhat disconnected way of many ancient people who have lived long before our times. Yet, however disconnected this story may be, however wide its gaps, however serious its omissions, it would be improper to overlook the fossil evidence of these early people. The fossilized relics must be permitted to set forth the story which they have to tell while we endeavour to keep our interpretations within the bounds imposed upon us by the nature of the evidence.

Brain of Java Ape Man

The brain cast representing the most ancient race of men yet discovered is that of the ape man of Java (Pithecanthropus erectus). Dr. Eugen Du Bois, when he made his wonderful discovery in Java, found almost the entire skull cap of this primitive man, who lived somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 years ago. His brain was remarkably small. It was not nearly so large as our modern brain or even as the brain of many other prehistoric people. Its capacity was only 940 cubic centimetres. This is small for a human brain, which ranges between 1000 to 1400 cubic centimetres. But if it is small for a man, it is much larger than any ape brain. An interesting comparison as to the size of the ape man’s brain is afforded when the brains of a large gorilla, of the Java ape man, and of a modern man are placed side by side. At once the differences are apparent. The brain we are now considering clearly occupies an intermediate position between the gorilla and modern man.

The striking feature about the brain of the lowly ape man is the great expansion which has taken place in the department and permanent headquarters of the highest mental faculties--the frontal lobe. Compared with the brain of the gorilla, there can be no dispute as to the great advantages held by the ape man in this part of his brain. The convolutions are plainly shown in this frontal area. In fact, these coils are more prominent in this region than elsewhere. This fact does not imply that the convolutions in the brain are supreme in the frontal lobe of the ape man. If they seem less prominent in the other lobes it is only because the frontal coils in all cases make more positive impressions upon the skull. It is fortunate, though, that these coils may be so clearly seen in that region of the superbrain which reveals the development of the highest faculties. We should also bear in mind that this department of the chief executive in the frontal lobe is preëminently a human possession. A comparison with the gorilla’s brain shows at once the great expansion which has occurred in the most responsible portion of man’s superbrain. In consequence of such frontal growth the human race distinguished itself in creation by acquiring all that is implied in the title Homo sapiens (man of wisdom).

Another decisive feature appears in this frontal region. The left convolutions are slightly larger than those on the right side. In all probability this difference in size indicates that a highly characteristic human quality has already been introduced. In the ape man the right hand already appears to have become the leader in all the varied skillful performances of manual achievement.

Speech

In this early period it seems likely that man was using his hands for constructive purposes. Of far more significance and bearing more decisively upon the destiny of humanity is the appearance of a well-marked coil in the lower portion of this frontal lobe on the left side. In all living races of man this convolution is associated with the control of spoken language. From this specialization it is apparent that the ape man had acquired the powers of speech. Even if his frontal lobe were small, it far surpassed that of any ape however highly developed.

It is clear from these facts that the primitive ape man of Java had risen to a plane far above the gorilla, although he was still much below that of modern man. Visualized from his brain, this Java man must have had increased powers of reasoning. He must have been capable of making better adjustments to life than the gorilla or any of the great manlike apes. He possessed the ability to build up a greater sphere of experience and make some approach to human personality. His tendency to right-handedness was a distinctly human character, around which are built many of man’s most productive specializations. In all of his qualities the Java man was much below his later human successors. It is difficult to estimate how much skill he had acquired with his hands, but it seems almost certain that he added one supreme advantage to the motor equipment of animal life. HE HAD LEARNED TO SPEAK--to communicate in verbal language. The animal machine had acquired a new means of expressing itself. It was capable of developing a new output in the production of which it became highly prolific.

Several theories have been advanced to explain the development of human speech. One of these attributes the origin of language to gestures, especially those made with the hands. Gestures indicating direction, location, distance, size, shape, motion, number, and many other specifications became associated with vocal expressions. These symbols were the basis of language, which required special speech centres in the brain for its control.

This means of communication laid the foundation of all human knowledge. Doubtless the linguistic ability of the Javan ape man was extremely crude, but he had taken a decisive step in a direction necessary to the further development of mankind.

More Effective Use of the Senses

In the department of his body and contact senses the ape man’s brain shows marked advances over the apes. The expansions here must be regarded as particularly connected with the free use of the hands and arms and the assumption of the erect posture. A much richer supply of raw materials in the way of sense impressions from the legs and arms, and from the body, generally speaking, made possible a more effective turnover and output of nervous energy. During this time man was learning many new uses for his hands in devising original means for maintaining and advancing his footholds in life.

The departments of sight and hearing situated respectively in the occipital and temporal lobes of the brain show that degree of expansion which supplied greater human powers. Man could see, and understand better what he saw. He could hear, and understand more fully what he heard. He was capable of more effective appreciation of his surroundings. If he obtained a better idea of the world through his sense of sight, he put these more ample impressions to better use in the visual direction of his actions and more especially in guiding the work of his hands by his eyes.

If his sense of hearing likewise gave him better understanding of the audible world about him, it was most important in that it contributed to the upbuilding of his vocal speech. Sounds which he heard began to have new meanings to him. From this it was but a step to translate such sounds into spoken words with fixed meanings of their own.

In all of these particulars the brain of the ape man had made definite advances. It was superior to all of its forerunners in the animal kingdom. The fact that it had thus advanced brings to mind many perplexing questions. Why had this great change taken place? What causes had produced the marked extensions in the frontal lobes and in all other lobes, sufficient at last to lift man up to a human level? Attempts to answer such questions venture into the field of conjecture. Many factors yet unknown may have been the real causes in producing this remarkable change.

The Human Hand and Foot

One great difference between man and the manlike apes seems to be based upon the character of the feet. Man had at length acquired two feet upon which to stand upright and make his way. His erect posture had caused many changes in his body, including the position of the head, the relation of the eyes, and the length of his limbs. None of these changes had more telling effect upon human destiny than the final freeing of the hands for occupations other than locomotion. In this way man acquired his most useful advantage--the hand. It became his chief reliance, the basis of his constructive abilities, and the guide of his analytical powers. It has been the achievement of his hands that has carried man onward. Some authorities believe that brain development was the chief factor in human progress. Such no doubt is the case, but it was the hand that called upon the brain for its progressive development.

Whatever other factors were at work, the hand was one of the most potent influences in the rise of man. With the brain to direct its action, to expand its usefulness, with the upright posture to give free range to its executions, with speech to make its accomplishments available to all, the hand became a master key, opening all the ways leading through the vast domain of human behaviour. If the influences which determined human emergence from the lower levels of animal life might be catalogued as a working theory, they would perhaps appear in the following order:

1. The development of the human foot upon which to establish the erect posture.

2. The freeing of the hand in consequence of the erect posture for the purposes of human success.

3. The expansions of sight and hearing for the better appreciation of the world and the more effective guidance of action.

4. The development of speech.

5. The establishment of human personality and the development of higher mental faculties. For the successful administration of these special powers, a brain of at least human capacity was necessary.

Brain of Piltdown Man

When Mr. Dawson found the fossil remains of the Piltdown Dawn man he brought to light another view of the human prehistoric brain. There are many indications that the Piltdown men had made great strides in their brain power. This is especially apparent in the frontal lobe. The convolutions are prominent, especially that one upon the left side which plainly indicates the power of speech. These early inhabitants of England must have been more gifted than the humbler ape man. Such at least is the evidence of the frontal lobe in which the department of the highest mental faculties was much better developed. Similar advances appear in the parietal regions, suggesting that the hands of these Dawn men had acquired increased capacities as constructive agents and sensory organs. The large expansion in the department of body and contact senses plainly signifies great advantages gained in exploring the world. Piltdown man must have understood the consistency, the texture, and shape of the things he touched. The weight and mobility of objects gave him information concerning their use. The advantages of wood and stone for projectile and penetrating purposes, the utility of sharp edges, the flexibility and tensile strength of various tissues, like the bark of trees or climbing vines, all came to him as revelations evoked by his new powers for sensing his world. These revelations were of much service in other ways. The Dawn man could utilize these sense impressions in directing new actions which helped him to overcome obstacles or to gain greater security. He could now combine stick and stone in a manner advantageous for his daily contacts with life. There may be some question whether the earlier ape man of Java had learned the secret of making implements for himself. With the Dawn man of Piltdown the case is different. It seems most likely that he had already established the industry of instrument making. Some students of this question still hesitate to believe that the dawn flint implements (eoliths) found in association with the Piltdown remains were really the product of human hands. It is probable that the Dawn man already possessed the great advantage of being right-handed. The chipping of stone implements would make it necessary for him to hold the flint in one hand and flake it skillfully with the other. The departments of hearing and sight both show an expansion similar to that in the other parts of the brain.

The Piltdown brain is superior to that of the Java ape man in all particulars. It indicates the power of speech, the development of right-handedness, and the establishment of higher mental faculties. It also attests that the Dawn man had come a long distance from that parting of the ways at which the human race separated from the great apes.

The Neanderthal Brain

The time assigned to the Dawn man’s day on earth varies considerably according to different estimates. The latest calculations place this time at a little over a million years ago. By comparison, Piltdown men were certainly more ancient than another race which dominated Europe for long ages. This was the famous Neanderthal race. These early and long extinct people migrated into Europe from the East. Their scattered fossil remains found in many different parts tell the same story of an unusually powerful race. In stature they were relatively short, probably not averaging much more than five feet three inches in height. Their arms were long and powerful, their necks thick and extremely muscular. Their legs were heavy and slightly bent at the knees. As a race they were distinguished by the shape of their heads and the size of their brains. The Neanderthal had a low, retreating forehead and a head that was peculiarly flat near the top. It seems as if the head were especially constructed as part of an effective fighting machine. Heavy ridges of bone surmounted the eyes much as is the case in the gorilla. The head was set down well upon the shoulders. The jaws were heavy, indicating that the teeth as well as other parts of the body might be employed in combat. The nose was broad and flat and the chin lacked prominence. All of these features must have given the Neanderthal man a brutish appearance. The low beetling brow, the flattened vault of the skull, the heavy jaw with receding chin, the broad flat nose, all gave him a countenance not unlike that of the great apes. Visualized from his fossil remains, the Neanderthal was a savage-looking creature. He would have been a dangerous wayfarer for the unwary to meet. He was probably so hideous in his appearance that his presence gave offense to men of more refined sensibility. This seems like a harsh judgment upon the Neanderthal. It is a low estimate of him which his brain does not justify. As a matter of fact, the size of the Neanderthal brain is somewhat greater than that of any modern races. If size alone were the standard, such a brain would not indicate a low degree of mental organization. But size alone is not a reliable indicator of brain capacity. Unusually large brains are often inferior in their brain power. It is said that the largest brain, both by weight and measure, was that of a feeble-minded gardener at one time employed in a large public garden in London. The volume of the Neanderthal brain is not a convincing argument as to its efficiency. From other indications, however, it is certain that this race had made definite advances in human progress. They were skilled artisans and flint workers. They had command of fire, which was employed in the upbuilding of distinct industries. Far from being lowly, ape-like creatures, they had many of the higher attributes of man.

The earliest discovery of these ancient people occurred in 1848 when Lieutenant Flint found the first Neanderthal skull in an old quarry at Gibraltar. The real meaning of this find, however, was not appreciated until more than sixty years later.

One of the most important Neanderthal discoveries was made in the valley of the Dordogne in southwestern France. In a cavern near the little village of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, the abbés Bouyssonie and Bardon (autumn, 1908) found the skeleton of a primitive man. The body rested upon its back, with its head toward the west, its legs, thighs, and forearms folded together. The head had been protected by flat stones, and many skillfully worked flints of the Mousterian period surrounded the body. There was every evidence of interment and burial ceremony about the discovery which, it was finally decided, was the skeleton of a middle-aged man belonging to the Neanderthal race. By measurement it was found that the skeleton must have contained a brain of large size, considerably larger than the average modern brain. The brain cast of this prehistoric man gives us some clear idea of Neanderthal brain power. In shape the brain is distinctly flat. The arching in the region of the forehead, so prominent in modern races, is absent. This part of the brain seems to sink inward as if the frontal lobe had gone somewhat into eclipse, or had not yet made that decisive expansion characteristic of later races of man. This condition, however, corresponds exactly with the low retreating forehead of the Neanderthal. When compared with the ape man of Java, or with the Dawn man of Piltdown, the Neanderthal brain does, however, show expansion in all of its major departments. The parietal, occipital, and temporal lobes have all increased in size. This is true also of the frontal lobe, but the ratio of expansion appears to be less here than in other areas. It is in this department that the real flatness of the brain is most pronounced. The convolutions in the frontal lobe fail to give the superbrain those dominant characters which produce a high, wide forehead in modern man. This apparent failure of the frontal lobe to attain greater proportions must have had far-reaching influences upon the life and destiny of these primitive Europeans.

All of the major departments of the brain show considerable expansion. The entire brain of the Neanderthal gives evidence of progressive development at the same time that it manifests many signs of deficiency and incomplete realization along the higher lines of progress.

Brain of Rhodesian Man

Asia and Europe have produced evidence of prehistoric man. Until quite recently Africa has been peculiarly silent in this regard. At length even the Dark Continent has revealed signs showing that man of a primitive type has gone a long way toward the south in his wanderings over the earth. This important discovery was made in Rhodesia and first publicly reported in 1921 by Mr. William L. Harris. The conditions of this discovery were peculiar and significant. Actual remains of two human skeletons were found at Broken Hill mine in northern Rhodesia. Connected with this mine there was originally a natural cave about 120 feet long. This is known as the bone cave. It contained a vast number of animal bones all impregnated with the salts of zinc and lead. At the bottom of this cave the human remains were found. Like all of the other bones, the human skeletons were incrusted by zinc and lead. The cave itself seems to have been the ancient feasting place for hyenas, which dragged thither their prey. There is some suspicion that these human remains may have come to their last resting place in the cave of bones in a similar manner. The cleft of the roof of the cave here is far in, which suggests the possibility that the men or women whose bones were found may have fallen into the cavern. Certain features of the skull, however, have convinced eminent authorities that these individuals belong to a very ancient prehistoric race. The face is far more brutal than that of any other known human being, living or extinct. The enormous eyebrow ridges resemble those of the gorilla, the nose is flat and has that snout-like appearance suggesting a peculiarly significant mark of the beast, known only in one other extinct member of the human family, the Neanderthal man. Another remarkable feature of the head is the great size of the palate and teeth. The brain case and the features of the brain lend support to the view that this Rhodesian man was even older and more primitive than Neanderthal man.

By all the signs of his frontal lobe the Rhodesian must have been a humble sort of human. Nothing in this department of his brain suggests any near approach to the attainments of modern man. The frontal lobe bears many marks of ape-like characters. It indicates at the same time a brain power which surpassed the limits of the great apes. It was a brain fast carrying man upward to the broader plains of human experience. The lot of the Rhodesian must have been precarious. He was pitted against formidable animals of the African wilds. But, judged by his frontal lobe, his brain had not left him destitute for the exigencies of such competition. He doubtless possessed the power of speech and the capacity for making human combinations. Compared with lower mammals he had a more facile association of ideas and could profit more effectively from experience. The evidence of his parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes indicates definite progress in all departments of sense perception. His brain was human though still in the rough. Whatever position is finally assigned to this far-distant cousin in our human family, he seems from his brain to have been a very simple sort of human being, older perhaps and even more primitive than any of the Neanderthal race.

Changes in Human Race Extremely Slow

It is impossible to give the exact dates for the appearance of the different races of prehistoric men. At best, our ideas concerning their antiquity must be approximate. Yet these fossils do not leave us in doubt in one respect at least. We know and we may prove our knowledge in many different ways that man has inhabited the globe through long ages, whether we rate these ages as hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Throughout these ages man has varied considerably. At first he bore many close resemblances to lower forms of life. Slowly he improved and manifested a progressive advance toward higher humanity. We may be inclined to question this progressive change from one stage to another largely because our own experience of life is limited to such a short span of time. Within the memory of any man the changes in his fellows seem inconsiderable. Mankind appears to have a dominating fixity in appearance. It is only a little more than sixty generations since the birth of Christ, and during this time the racial characters of men have changed but little. The white man, the red man, the black man, and the yellow man, are all much the same in the form of body, the shape of head, the appearance of face, as they were sixty generations ago. There is more than a striking figure of speech in the scriptural definition that a thousand years are but as a day in the endless expanse of time. Measured by such days as these, man has changed slowly but surely. When we contemplate long days of this kind, each of a thousand years, their accumulation in the existence of our race takes on a new meaning. Estimate, for example, how far back ten days of this time would take us. We should find ourselves in the life of the world as it was ten thousand years ago, in that critical period when a vast social and racial change was altering the colour and complexion of human existence in Europe. The senile but still wonderful Cromagnon race was then limping along to the last stage of its declining old age and was about to disappear. The hardy and practical man of the New Stone Age had already arrived and was fast becoming master of the situation. The Cromagnon artist-hunter was passing the sceptre of human control in Europe over to the hard-headed Neolithic business man. Another fifty days (each of a thousand years) still further back and we find again a momentous crisis. At that time the Neanderthal man was passing. In spite of all his rugged vigour, his day on earth was done. He had carried on existence successfully for seven or eight hundred thousand years, but now the time of his extinction was at hand. These seven or eight hundred thousand years would merely be seven or eight hundred days, according to the new kind of timepiece by which we are endeavouring to measure the duration of human progress.

Cromagnons Replace the Neanderthals

We may pause to seek some reason for the momentous change when the Neanderthal appears to have bowed before the Cromagnon. The real secret in the failure of the old race and the success of the new may be found in the brain. It was the increased brain power of the Cromagnon which produced the supremacy of this great race. It was this power which gave Europe its first pioneers in art and, for all mankind, opened the doors of creative imagination and appreciation of beauty in the world.

It would be particularly illuminating if a brain of the Cromagnon race were available for study. These first artists occupied an exalted position. They began their life in Europe about fifty thousand years ago and carried on their industries for a period twenty times longer than the duration of the Christian Era. At present there is no Cromagnon brain cast available. We may, however, draw analogies from certain of their human contemporaries, who lived in the middle part of Europe during the Solutrean period. These were days when Cromagnon art and industry were at their zenith, when the Old Stone Age had attained its culminating stage and flourished in its fullest development. The Solutrean contemporaries of the Cromagnons were themselves a remarkable people. They are known as the “great mammoth hunters of Prêdmost.” Their fossil remains have been found in Moravia. Associated with them were the fossilized bones of nearly nine hundred specimens of mammoths. In addition to these fossils of men and beasts there were found many highly worked flints, including spear heads and other stone implements, all having a pattern which belonged to the Solutrean period. At Prêdmost, where this discovery was made, there was a collective burial of fourteen human beings, with the remains of six others. These great mammoth hunters must have been a large and powerful race. Their prowess as trackers of great game was exceptional. The character of their brain as revealed by the casts made from their skulls places them at once on a plane higher than any of the earlier races of man. In fact, it admits them to membership in the same race to which we ourselves belong--that is, Homo sapiens. These intrepid hunters, according to their fossil remains, closely resembled their splendid contemporaries of western Europe, the Cromagnons. Of these latter there is an ample record in consequence of which they will always rank among the best representatives of the human species. Their remarkable artistic contributions denote far more than the executive mastery of art. They signalize that new spirit which had been breathed into mankind, that devotion to the beautiful in life which created an abiding enthusiasm in all of our race for its highest ideals and loftiest purposes. From the first days of Cromagnon life these tendencies were dominant. They were a people who delighted in the lavish use of personal adornment. Coiffure was of particular interest with the women and a highly developed personal achievement. Both the men and the women seem to have been fond of using red and yellow ochre, much as in modern times, to beautify the body. If certain Egyptian ladies are credited with the invention of the lipstick and of rouge, it is probable that they found their examples for such artistic practices in these Cromagnon prototypes. Drawing, painting, and sculpture were not the only creations of the Cromagnons in the realm of art. It seems probable that they had invented some form of music. Their sketches of dances and masks make it seem likely that to vocal expression they had added certain artificial accessories in the shape of crude musical instruments. One character in the artistic discrimination of these artists and sculptors of the Old Stone Age is of unusual interest. It shows a distinct partiality for portraying women of extreme corpulence. Many of their statuettes have been discovered which, in spite of their somewhat unsightly embonpoint, are called Venuses. The most famous of these is the Venus of Willendorf. It was, however, in the carving of animal forms that Cromagnon art attained its real heights. Many living and extinct species of birds, mammals, and fish have thus been immortalized. Back of all this varied artistic creation there must have been a social organization of high order, for only a rich human experience could provide the soil for such vivid and real beauty in art.

The Mammoth Hunters of Prêdmost

The brain of the great mammoth hunters of Prêdmost had a volume close to the standards of modern men. It had lost those marks of inferiority which stamp the brains of lower races. It had gained that refinement of structure in the superbrain which proclaims the ascendant qualities of humanity. The groove of Sylvius and the central groove show the boundaries and the size of the several lobes of the brain, which correspond closely to those of modern man. It is in the frontal lobe that the most remarkable gains are apparent. The convolutions in this region are prominent and well defined. That flatness so typical of the Neanderthal brain has disappeared. These Prêdmost and Cromagnon people were not a race of flatheads, such as were the Neanderthals. The human forehead had become high and broad. It was no longer ape-like and receding, but clearly indicated that the human brain had developed sufficiently in its latest acquired and most highly organized department to demonstrate that man at length was capable of real humanity.

From the Java ape-man up to Homo sapiens of modern times there has been a slow but gradual increase in all of the important measurements of the brain. There has been a gain in length, in breadth, and in height. Much of this gain has taken place in the region of the frontal lobe, and thus has expressed itself in expansion in the highest department for developing brain power. The meaning of this pronounced frontal expansion is evident in the progressive extensions of human intelligence.

Progress of the Human Family

Judged by its brain power, the human family has clearly been progressive. In this respect it differs from all other families in the animal kingdom. In various parts of the world mankind has lagged behind. Such is the case in the tropics, where the races of men are still in a primitive stage. This is true also of many islands of the sea, in the arctic regions, and in other remote and inaccessible places of the earth. But given its full opportunity the human family has not failed to go forward. The line of its progress may not be deemed wholly satisfactory by the higher standards of enlightened criticism. Yet in bending the forces of nature more and more to his will as well as to his convenience, man has surely progressed. Where he has stood still, where perhaps he has even fallen behind, is in the manifest lack of control over his own nature. His curiosity has led him to inquire into every phase and aspect of life upon the globe. But in all of these inquiries he has given far too little thought to himself. Only within recent years has he become deeply interested in the mechanisms of his own behaviour. Least of all has he devoted time and thought to the organ of his chief reliance, to the creator of his successes, to the dictator of his future.

Since his earliest beginnings man has grown in humanity as his brain expanded. Such a conclusion seems irresistible. If we place side by side the brain casts of the ape man of Java, the Dawn man of Piltdown, the Rhodesian, the Neanderthal, the Prêdmost, and the modern, we have before us a demonstration of this progress more effective than words.

The regions in which the greatest development has occurred are easily discerned. Marked additions have been made to the department of sight in the occipital lobe, of hearing in the temporal lobe, of body and contact sense in the parietal lobe. The mechanisms for the amplification of sense perception and sense combination have been manifoldly increased. But it is in the department of the chief executive of life and experience that the most decisive advance has occurred. This area of the frontal lobe, so poorly represented in man’s nearest kin, the great manlike apes, shows exuberant growth, even in the ape man of Java. Here its features correspond to those of modern man in nearly every detail. Its only essential inferiority is its relative smallness. Its special development of convolutions denotes the acquisition of human speech and human reason.

Progressive Development of the Human Brain

Were we to select any single area in the superbrain as the department supreme in mental organization, we should not neglect the claims of the department for vision, for hearing, for body and contact sense. Although each of these has progressively expanded, we would be much more strongly inclined to favour that part of the superbrain which has been active as the superlative sense combiner, which has served to develop the fullest impressions of human existence, to accumulate the widest ranges of experience, to direct most broadly the actions of our behaviour. Traced through all of their intermediate stages upward, it is these frontal regions which manifest the most conspicuous development. The process of this long, progressive expansion in the frontal lobe reaches back to the earliest periods of man’s existence. It conveys an accurate impression of the manner in which the brain has responded to the demands made upon it. The human brain may still be considered to be in its early youth, in spite of the fact that more than a million years of human striving lie behind it. This great antiquity, this remarkable flexibility, have been largely overlooked. By most of us the human brain is regarded as a finished product. Its long, prehistoric record as we know it to-day does not support this point of view. On the contrary, it makes it appear far more probable that the brain of modern man is only some intermediate stage in the ultimate development of the master organ of life. The greatest possibilities for future progress lie in further expansion of the frontal lobe. For this reason the brain of prehistoric man is not merely an antiquarian relic, it is a sign from the long ages of the past showing the road man has followed in his upward course. It likewise conveys some suggestions concerning the future. For, if the human brain began as a simple organ and gradually developed through successive stages, there is reason to believe, if not to predict, that it may develop still further.