But it is equally true, as Gratiolet remarks, that, in its widely open sylvian fissure, it differs from the brain of any actual marmoset. No doubt it would be much more similar to the brain of an advanced foetus of a marmoset. But we know nothing whatever of the development of the brain in the marmosets. In the Platyrrhini proper, the only observation with which I am acquainted is due to Pansch, who found in the brain of a foetal Cebus Apella, in addition to the sylvian fissure and the deep calcarine fissure, only a very shallow antero-temporal fissure (scissure parallele of Gratiolet).
Now this fact, taken together with the circumstance that the antero- temporal sulcus is present in such Platyrrhini as the Saimiri, which present mere traces of sulci on the anterior half of the exterior of the cerebral 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.
PART II. SEXUAL SELECTION.