Nahum Barnet an Ernst Haeckel, Melbourne, 27. Mai 1901
NAHUM BARNET,
ARCHITECT,
MELBOURNE.
May 27th 1901
412 Collins Street
Melbourne
Australia
Dear Sir,
In your interesting address on the subject of brain evolution which I have just read here in Australia you refer, I note, more particularly to the gradual development of brain structure for a „better and finer brain“, (just as in the case of physical changes in the human structure) with the advance of civilising influencers. You say that „man at present seems to be developing in or retrograding in masses – by nations, and yet under very different influences.“ The Australian aborigines are truly || representative of an inferior race in process of total extinction, brought about by contact with people of a higher intelligence. There is no gradual disappearance here of a member of the body, nor of the evolution of a part of same, as you mention in connecting with the superior specimens of humanity, but the absolute blotting out of the lower and debased types in toto. In the State of Victoria (Australia), in which I was born, we have no pure-bred aboriginals in existence, and in Australia generally, including Polynesia and Malaysia, all the nation races are passing rapidly away. I enclose you a picture of an aboriginal woman of Northern Australia whose brain structure is obviously cramped, and whose lustreless eyes, and general irregularity and exaggeration of facial flatures, bespeak only the faintest gleam of intelligence over and above that of the lower animals.
Yours, with much respect
N. Barnet
To
Prof. Haeckel
Germany