The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Vol. IDarwin, Charles
Science
The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, Vol. I
Darwin, Charles
Evolution (Biology); Human beings -- Origin; Sex differences; Sexual dimorphism (Animals); Sexual selection in animals
In the adult male anthropomorphous apes, as Rütimeyer,[207] and others
have insisted, it is precisely the effect which the jaw-muscles by their
great development have produced on the skull, that causes it to differ
so greatly in many respects from that of man, and has given to it “a
truly frightful physiognomy.” Therefore as the jaws and teeth in the
progenitors of man gradually become reduced in size, the adult skull
would have presented nearly the same characters which it offers in the
young of the anthropomorphous apes, and would thus have come to resemble
more nearly that of existing man. A great reduction of the canine teeth
in the males would almost certainly, as we shall hereafter see, have
affected through inheritance the teeth of the females.
As the various mental faculties were gradually developed, the brain
would almost certainly have become larger. No one, I presume, doubts
that the large size of the brain in man, relatively to his body, in
comparison with that of the gorilla or orang, is closely connected with
his higher mental powers. We meet with closely analogous facts with
insects, in which the cerebral ganglia are of extraordinary dimensions
in ants; these ganglia in all the Hymenoptera being many times larger
than in the less intelligent orders, such as beetles.[208] On the other
hand, no one supposes that the intellect of any two animals or of any
two men can be accurately gauged by the cubic contents of their skulls.
It is certain that there may be extraordinary mental activity with an
extremely small absolute mass of nervous matter: thus the wonderfully
diversified instincts, mental powers, and affections of ants are
generally known, yet their cerebral ganglia are not so large as the
quarter of a small pin’s head. Under this latter point of view, the
brain of an ant is one of the most marvellous atoms of matter in the
world, perhaps more marvellous than the brain of man.
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