It has long been the prevailing opinion among naturalists that the Negro race is inferior, both in organization and in intellectual powers, to the European; and that, in all the points of difference, it exhibits an approach to the Monkey tribes. The object of the present paper is to institute a rigid inquiry into the validity of this opinion. The author has, for this purpose, examined an immense number of brains of persons of different sexes, of various ages, and belonging to different varieties of the human race, both by ascertaining their exact weight, and also by accurate measurement of the capacity of the cavity of the cranium 5 and has arrived at the following conclusions. The weight of the brain of an adult male European varies from 31bs.3oz. to 4lbs. 1 I oz. troy weight : that of the female weighs, on an average, from 4 to 8 oz. less than that of the male. The brain usually attains its full dimensions at the age of seven or eight j and decreases in size in old age. At the time of birth, the brain bears a larger proportion to the size of the body than at any subsequent period of life, being then as one sixth of the total weight; at two years of age it is one fourteenth ; at three, one eighteenth; at fifteen, one twenty-fourth; and in the adult period, that is, from the age of twenty to that of seventy, it is generally within the limits of one thirty-fifth and one forty-fifth. In the case of adults, however, this proportion is much regulated by the condition of the body as to corpulence ; being in thin persons from one twenty-second to one twenty-seventh, and in fat persons often only one fiftieth, or even one hundredth of the total weight of the body. The brain has been found to be particularly large in some individuals possessed of extraordinary mental capacity. No perceptible difference exists either in the average weight or the average size of the brain of the Negro and of the European: and the nerves are not larger, relatively to the size of the brain, in the former than in the latter. In the external form of the brain of the Negro a very slight difference only can be traced from that of the European; but there is absolutely no difference whatsoever in its internal structure, nor does the Negro brain, exhibit any greater resemblance to that of the ourang-outang than the brain of the European, excepting, perhaps, in the more symmetrical disposition of its convolutions. Many of the results which the author has thus deduced from his researches are at variance with the received opinions relative to the presumed inferiority of the Negro structure, both in the conformation and relative dimensions of the brain; and he ascribes the erroneous notions which have been hitherto entertained on these subjects chiefly to prejudice created by the circumstance that the facial angle in the negro is smaller than in the European, and consequently makes, in this respect, an approach to that of the ape, in which it is still farther diminished. The author denies that there is any innate difference in the intellectual faculties of these two varieties of the human race; and maintains that the apparent inferiority of the Negro is altogether the result of the demoralizing influence of slavery, and of the long-continued oppression and cruelty which have been exercised towards this unhappy portion of mankind by their more early civilized, and consequently more successful competitors for the dominion of the world.
Human Development IX: A Model of the Wholeness of Man, His Consciousness, and Collective Consciousness