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delightful and instructive survey would the historian both of nature and of mankind be able to take , at a single view , of the physical geography of the earth ! But we are only in the commencement of such studies . Scientific inquirers in different quarters of the globe have accumulated materials for the rich harvest of results , which probably some day or other the Peruvian mountains ( perhaps the most interesting region of the world for the higher departments of natural history ) will reduce to unity and certainty */
After noticing the analogies of structure and organization pervading the vegetable and animal kingdoms , which exhibit one predominant purpose of nourishment and propagation , varied according to the peculiar exigencies of the case , Herder adopts this general view of the physiology of man , that l he constitutes the central point of animated nature , the consummate form , in which are united , as in a refined abstract or epitome , the features of all the tribes around him f . *
The development and illustration of this general idea occupies all his third book . In the fourth he shows , that the whole of human organization is calculated with [ a view to the exercise of reason ^ and points out the peculiarities of structure , which must for ever exclude the animals that most nearly resemble man , from attaining to its functions . We have already noticed that much of the value of Herder ' s book consists of its hints and suggestions : his remarks on the brain will justify this observation . Having stated that no sure results , as to the measure of
intelligence , can be obtained from comparing together the mass of the brain in different animals , and that the elephant , the most
intelligent of brutes , has a small brain in proportion to its general bulk , he applies another criterion in order to determine the ground of the intellectual superiority of the human species ; and this criterion he thinks may be found , not in the absolute mass of the brain , but in its more delicate elaboration in the proportion and position of its parts towards each other , and in the
exquisite adaptation of the sensory to collect with the greatest exactness—and most energetically to combine into thought—the widest extent and variety of outward impressions . Hence the importance of the erect attitude of man , and of the position of the head , which is the seat of the principal senses , in relation to the other parts of his frame t .
' It were much to be wished / he adds , * that anatomists—especially in the examination of animals that resemble the human species ^ -would pay particular attention to this internal relation of the parts of the brain , according to their position towards each other , and according to the direction of the head in its general organization to the whdle body : here , I conceive , lies the difference of organization adapted to this
otto that instinct—to the functions of the soul of a brute , or of the Intel ? First Book , vii ., pp . 47 , 48 . f Sfcwmd Book , iv ., p . 76 . f Fourth Book , ii 9 p . 140 .
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the Philosophy ofthe Uutoty ofMankind * 99
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1832, page 39, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1804/page/39/
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