On the Brain | Page 8

hemispheres, or none at all, undoubtedly, so far as it goes,
affords fair evidence in favour of Gratiolet's hypothesis, that the
posterior sulci appear before the anterior, in the brains of the Platyrrhini.
But, it by no means follows, that the rule which may hold good for the
Platyrrhini extends to the Catarrhini. We have no information whatever
respecting the development of the brain in the Cynomorpha; and, as
regards the Anthropomorpha, nothing but the account of the brain of
the Gibbon, near birth, already referred to. At the present moment there
is not a shadow of evidence to shew that the sulci of a chimpanzee's, or
orang's, brain do not appear in the same order as a man's.
Gratiolet opens his preface with the aphorism: "Il est dangereux dans
les sciences de conclure trop vite." I fear he must have forgotten this
sound maxim by the time he had reached the discussion of the
differences between men and apes, in the body of his work. No doubt,
the excellent author of one of the most remarkable contributions to the
just understanding of the mammalian brain which has ever been made,
would have been the first to admit the insufficiency of his data had he
lived to profit by the advance of inquiry. The misfortune is that his
conclusions have been employed by persons incompetent to appreciate
their foundation, as arguments in favour of obscurantism. (80. For
example, M. l'Abbe Lecomte in his terrible pamphlet, 'Le Darwinisme
et l'origine de l'Homme,' 1873.)
But it is important to remark that, whether Gratiolet was right or wrong
in his hypothesis respecting the relative order of appearance of the
temporal and frontal sulci, the fact remains; that before either temporal
or frontal sulci, appear, the foetal brain of man presents characters
which are found only in the lowest group of the Primates (leaving out

the Lemurs); and that this is exactly what we should expect to be the
case, if man has resulted from the gradual modification of the same
form as that from which the other Primates have sprung.

End of T.H. Huxley's On the Brain [from Descent of Man by Charles
Darwin]
T.H. Huxley On the Brain from Descent of Man by Charles Darwin
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Note on the Resemblances and Differences in the Structure and the
Development of the Brain in Man and Apes
by Professor T.H. Huxley, F.R.S.
From The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin
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