Part 2 (1/2)
A modern philosopher has attributed to the hand alone our intellectual superiority. This was going too far. We find enthusiasm allied with justice in the views expressed in the excellent pages which Galen has consecrated to a description of the hand, in his immortal work _De usu partium_.
”Man alone,” says Galen, ”is furnished with hands, as he alone is a partic.i.p.ator in wisdom. The hand is a most marvellous instrument, and one most admirably adapted to his nature. Remove his hand, and man can no longer exist. By its means he is prepared for defence or attack, for peace or war. What need has he of horns or talons? With his hand, he grasps the sword and lance, he fas.h.i.+ons iron and steel. Whilst with horns, teeth and talons, animals can only attack or defend at close quarters, man is able to project from afar the instruments with which he is armed. Shot from his hand, the feathered arrow reaches at a great distance the heart of an enemy, or stops the flight of a pa.s.sing bird.
Although man is less agile than the horse and the deer, yet he mounts the horse, guides him, and thus successfully hunts the deer. He is naked and feeble, yet his hand procures him a covering of iron and steel. His body is unprotected against the inclemencies of climate, yet his hand finds him a convenient abode, and furnishes him with clothing.
By the use of his hand, he gains dominion and mastery over all that lives upon the earth, in the air, or in the depths of the sea. From the flute and lyre with which he amuses his leisure, to the terrible instruments by means of which he deals death around him, and to the vessel which bears him, a daring seaman, upon the bosom of the deep--all is the work of his hand.
”Would man without hands have been able to write out the laws which govern him, or raise to the G.o.ds statues and altars? Without hands could he bequeath to posterity the fruit of his labours, and the memory of his deeds? Could he (had man been created handless) converse with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the different great men, children of bygone ages?
The hand is then the physical characteristic of man, in like manner as intelligence is his moral characteristic.”
Galen, having shown in this chapter the general formation of the hand and the special disposition of the organs which compose it; having described the articulations and bones, the muscles and tendons of the fingers; and having a.n.a.lyzed the mechanism of the different movements of the hand, cries, full of admiration for this marvellous structure:
”In presence of the hand, this marvellous instrument, cannot we well treat with contempt the opinion of those philosophers who saw in the human body merely the result of a fortuitous concourse of atoms! Does not everything in our organization most clearly give the lie to this false doctrine? Who will dare to invoke chance in explanation of this admirable disposition? No, it is no blind power that has given birth to all these marvels. Do you know among men a genius capable of conceiving and executing so perfect a work? There exists not such a workman. This sublime organization is the creation of a superior intelligence, of which the intellect of man is but a poor terrestrial reflection. Let others offer to the Deity reeking hecatombs, let them sing hymns in honour of the G.o.ds; my hymn of praise shall be the study and the exposition of the marvels of the human frame!”
The sense of hearing, without attaining in man the perfection which it reaches in certain animals, is nevertheless of great delicacy, and becomes an infinite resource of instruction and pure enjoyment. Not only are differences of intonation, intensity, and timbre, recognised by our ear, but the most delicate shades of rhythm and tone, the relations of simultaneous and successive sounds which give the sentiment of melody and harmony, are appreciated, and furnish us with the first and most natural of the arts--music. Thus the perfection and delicacy of our senses, which permit of our grasping faint and slightly varying impressions, the harmony of these senses themselves, their perfect equilibrium, their capability of improvement by exercise, place us at a considerable distance above the animal.
Let us now pa.s.s to the bony portion of the human body, and consider first of all the head. The head is shared by two regions, the cranium and the face. The predominance of either of these regions over the other, depends upon the development of the organs which belong to each.
The cranium contains the cerebral ma.s.s, that is, the seat of the intellect; the face is occupied by the organs appertaining to the princ.i.p.al senses. In animals, the face greatly exceeds the cranium in extent; the reverse is, however, the case with man. It is but rarely that with him the face a.s.sumes importance at the expense of the cranium--in other words, that the jaws become elongated, and give to the human face the aspect of a brute.
We find in works upon anthropology some expressions which call for an explanation here; they are frequently employed, since they enable us to express by a single term the relation which exists between the dimensions of any particular skull. The term _dolichocephalous_ (from the Greek d??????, long, ?efa??, head,) is applied to a cranium which is elongated from front to rear, or, to express the idea numerically, the cranium whose longitudinal diameter bears to its vertical diameter the proportion of 100 to 68. A short cranium is styled _brachycephalous_ (from ?a???, short, ?efa??, head,) which term is applied when the relation between the longitudinal and vertical diameters is 100 to 80.
The attribute of length or shortness of the cranium is of less importance than is generally believed. All Negroes, it is true, are _dolichocephalous_; but it must not be supposed from this that the production backwards of the cranium is an indication of inferiority; since in the white race, heads are sometimes very long and sometimes very short. The North Germans are _dolichocephalous_; those inhabiting Central Germany being _brachycephalous_. This characteristic cannot therefore be regarded as a criterion of intellectual excellence.
There is in the human face an anatomical characteristic of greater importance than any taken from the elongation of the cranium; that is, the projection forwards, or the uprightness of the jaws. The term _prognathism_ (from p??, forward, and ??a???, jaw,) is applied to this jutting forward of the teeth and jaws, and _orthognathism_ (from ?????, straight, ??a???, jaw,) to the latter arrangement.
It was long admitted that prognathism, or projection of the jaws, was peculiar to the Negro race. But this opinion has been forced to yield to the discovery, that projecting jaws exist among people in no way connected with the Negro. In the midst of white populations this characteristic is frequently met with; it is occasionally found among the English, and is by no means rare at Paris, especially among women.
Prognathism would appear to be characteristic of a small European race dwelling to the south of the Baltic Sea, the Esthonians, and which itself is but the residue of the _primitive Mongolian_ race to which we have alluded in our work, ”Primitive Man,” as being the first race which, according to M. Pruner-Bey, peopled the globe. It is probably the mixture of Esthonian blood with that of the inhabitants of Central Europe, which causes the appearance in our large cities of individuals whose faces are prognathous.
We cannot close our remarks upon the face without speaking of a curious relation between it and the cranium, which has been much abused; we allude to the _facial angle_. By _facial angle_ is meant the angle which results from the union of two lines, one of which touches the forehead, the other of which, drawn from the orifice of the ear, meets the former line at the extremity of the front teeth.
The Dutch anatomist Camper, after having compared Greek and Roman statues, or medals of either nationality, a.s.sumed that the cause of the intellectual superiority which distinguished Greek from Roman physiognomies was to be found in the fact, that, with the Greeks, the facial angle is larger than in Roman heads. Starting with this observation, Camper pursued his enquiries until it occurred to him to advance the theory that the increase of the facial angle may be taken in the human race as a sign of superior intelligence.
This observation was correct, insomuch as it separated men from apes, and carrion birds from other birds. But its application to different varieties of men, as a measure of their various degrees of intelligence, was a pretension doomed to be sacrificed to future investigations. Dr.
Jacquart, a.s.sistant-naturalist in the Museum of Natural History at Paris, calling to his aid an instrument he invented, by which the facial angle is rapidly measured, has, in our day, made numerous studies of the facial angle of human beings. M. Jacquart found that this angle cannot be taken as a measure of intelligence, for he observed it to be a right angle in individuals, who, with respect to intelligence, were in no way superior to others whose facial angle was much smaller. M. Jacquart went so far as to show, that, in the population of Paris alone, the facial angle varies between much wider proportions than those imposed by Camper as characteristic limits of human varieties.
The measure of the facial angle, therefore, is far from bearing the importance which has long been ascribed to it; but this does not go to prevent its application, with advantage, in ordinary cases, when races of men are required to be distinguished from one another.
Erect carriage is another of the characteristics which distinguish the human species from all other animals, including the ape, by whom this position is but rarely a.s.sumed, and then accidentally and unnaturally.
Everything in the human skeleton is calculated to ensure a vertical posture. In the first place, the head articulates with the vertebral column at a point so situated that, when this vertebral column is erect, the head, by means of its own weight, remains supported in equilibrium.
Besides this, the shape of the head, the direction of the face, the position of the eyes, and the form of the nostrils, all require that man should walk erect on two feet.
If our body were intended to a.s.sume a horizontal position, everything connected with it would be out of place: the crown of the head would be the most advanced part, and this would operate most detrimentally to the exercise of sight; the eyes would be directed toward the earth; the nostrils would open backward; the forehead and the face would be beneath the head. Moreover, the whole muscular system and all the tendons are, in man, auxiliary to erect posture, without mentioning the curves which occur in the vertebral column, and the exceptional formation of the limbs, &c.
J. J. Rousseau was, therefore, very far from right, when he contended that man was born to go on all fours.
The height of men, as well as the colour of their skin, are characteristics which must not be overlooked, since they are of importance as distinctive attributes of different races.
And first, with regard to height, the differences which this incident may present in the human species have been greatly exaggerated. Much allowance must be made in admitting what has been written with respect to dwarfs, and what has been alleged concerning giants. The Greeks believed in the existence of a people they called _Pygmies_, but whose place of abode they always omitted to point out. These were very small people, who were entirely hidden from view when they entered a field of standing wheat, and who pa.s.sed much of their time in resisting the attacks of Cranes. The same fable was revived in more modern times, with reference to a people supposed to live in the island of Madagascar, who were styled _Kymes_. But Pygmies and Kymes are equally fabulous.
Antiquity tells us of giants, but without forming them into a separate race. It is rather in modern times that the existence of races of human giants has been put forward. In the sixteenth century, when Magellan had doubled Cape Horn and discovered the Pacific Ocean, a companion of this navigator, Pigafetta, gave an altogether extraordinary description of the Patagonians, or inhabitants of the Tierra del Fuego. He made giants of them. One of his successors, Leaya, adding yet more to the height of the Patagonians, a.s.signed to these men a stature of from three to four metres.