The brain : its development, architecture, functions and education a lecture delivered in the Assembly Rooms, Grahamstown, on 18th May, 1892 / by T. Duncan Greenlees.

  • Greenlees, T. Duncan.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The brain : its development, architecture, functions and education a lecture delivered in the Assembly Rooms, Grahamstown, on 18th May, 1892 / by T. Duncan Greenlees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/30 (page 6)
    greater as the ages roll past. These improve¬ ments on the original plan of the brain—the result of civilisation and education—-have produced changes so marked that there is as great difference between the brain of an educated man and thatjof a savage, as there is between the latter’s brain and a monkey’s. Although the s:xe of the Savage's brain may be larger than that of the monkey, its com¬ ponent parts and its minute structure cor¬ respond very closely with the brain of the lower animal. You have all heard of Darwin and the evolution theory: how, when re-discovered—for it was known cen¬ turies ago—the Church put its veto upon it, the Pope issued Bulls against it, and a certain class of religionists clamoured aloud against this supposed Antichrist’s doctrine. In spite of all this opposition, the theory, now no longer a theory, but a scientific fact, has flourished, until at the present day its enemies seem to have disappeared in the smoke of their own incantations! Now, in the whole study of nature there is no subject more convincing of the truth of evolution than that we are discussing to-night. As we shall see from the simplest cell of nerve matter, we are able to follow the brain’s development through phases of increasing complexity of structure, until we have the completed organ which is found in man. And yet we cannot say that the human brain is perfect: it may be that in ages to come, man’s mind may attain to that state of perfection, that he will be able to see in a glass clearly what he now sees only dimly. The study of the brain necessitates a con¬ sideration of its evolution from its primitive form as met with in the lower animals : this is embraced in the study called Com-