The Case Against Evolution, by George Barry O’Toole, Ph. D., S.T.D

ADDENDA

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

The literature on the subject of evolution has already attained such vast dimensions that any attempt to add to it has the appearance of being both superfluous and presumptuous. It is, however, in the fact that the generality of modern works are frankly partisan in their treatment of this theme that the publication of the present work finds justification.

For the philosophers and scientists of the day evolution is evidently something which admits of no debate and which must be maintained at all costs. These thinkers are too intent upon making out a plausible case for the theory to take anything more than the mildest interest in the facts opposed to it. If they advert to them at all, it is always to minimize, and never to accentuate, their antagonistic force. For the moment, at any rate, the minds of scientific writers are closed to unfavorable, and open only to favorable, evidence, so that one must look elsewhere than in their pages for adequate presentation of the case against evolution.

The present work aims at setting forth the side of the question which it is now the fashion to suppress. It refuses to be bound by the convention which prescribes that evolution shall be leniently criticized. It proceeds, in fact, upon the opposite assumption, namely, that a genuinely scientific theory ought not to stand in need of indulgence, but should be able, on the contrary, to endure the acid test of merciless criticism.

Evolution has been termed a “necessary hypothesis.” We have no quarrel with the phrase, provided it really means evolution as an hypothesis, and not evolution as a dogma. For, obviously, the problem of a gradual differentiation of organic species cannot even be investigated upon the fixistic assumption, inasmuch as this assumption destroys the problem at the very outset. Unless we assume the possibility, at least, that modern species of plants and animals may have been the product of a gradual process, there is no problem to investigate. It is, however, a far cry from the possibility to the actuality; and the mere fact that an hypothesis is necessary as an incentive to investigation does not by any means imply that the result of the investigation will be the vindication of its inspirational hypothesis. On the contrary, research often results in the overthrow of the very hypothesis which led to its inception. We can, therefore, quite readily admit the necessity of evolution as an hypothesis, while rejecting its necessity as a dogma.

Assent to evolution as a dogma is advocated not only by materialists, who see in evolutionary cosmogony proof positive of their monism and the complete overthrow of the idea of Creation, but also by certain Catholic scientists, who seem to fear that religion may become involved in the anticipated ruin of fixism. Thus all resistance to the theory of evolution is deprecated by Father Wasmann and Canon Dorlodot on the assumption that the ultimate triumph of this theory is inevitable, and that failure to make provision for this eventuality will lead to just such another blunder as theologians of the sixteenth century made in connection with the Copernican theory. Recollection of the Galileo incident is, doubtless, salutary, in so far as it suggests the wisdom of caution and the imperative necessity of close contact with ascertained facts, but a consideration of this sort is no warrant whatever for an uncritical acceptance of what still remains unverified. History testifies that verification followed close upon the heels of the initial proposal of the heliocentric theory, but the whole trend of scientific discovery has been to destroy, rather than to confirm, all definite formulations of the evolutional theory, in spite of the immense erudition expended in revising them.

There is, in brief, no parity at all between Transformism and the Copernican theory. Among other points of difference, Tuccimei notes especially the following: “The Copernican system,” he remarks, “explains that which is, whereas evolution attempts to explain that which was; it enters, in other words, into the problem of origins, an insoluble problem in the estimation of many illustrious evolutionists, according to whom no experimental verification is possible, given the processes and factors in conjunction with which the theory was proposed. But what is of still greater significance for those who desire to see a parallelism between the two theories is the fact that the Copernican system became, with the discoveries of Newton, a demonstrated thesis, scarcely fifty years after the death of Galileo; the theory of evolution, on the other hand, is at the present day no longer able to hold its own even as an hypothesis, so numerous are its incoherencies and the objections to it raised by its own partisans.” (“La Decadenza di una Teoria,” 1908, p. 11.)

The prospect, then, of a renewal of the Galileo episode is exceedingly remote. Far more imminent to the writer seems the danger that the well-intentioned rescuers of religion may be obliged to perform a most humiliating volte face, after having accepted all too hastily a doctrine favored only for the time being in scientific circles. It is, in fact, by no means inconceivable that the scientific world will eventually discard the now prevalent dogma of evolution. In that case those who have seen fit to reconcile religion with evolution will have the questionable pleasure of unreconciling it in response to this reversal of scientific opinion.

On the whole, the safest attitude toward evolution is the agnostic one. It commits us to no uncertain position. It does not compromise our intellectual sincerity by requiring us to accept the dogmatism of scientific orthodoxy as a substitute for objective evidence. It precludes the possible embarrassment of having to unsay what we formerly said. And last, but not least, it is the attitude of simple truth; for the truest thing that Science is, or ever will be, able to say concerning the problem of organic origins is that she knows nothing about it.

In the present work, we shall endeavor to show that Evolution has long since degenerated into a dogma, which is believed in spite of the facts, and not on account of them. The first three chapters deal with the theory in general, discussing in turn its genetical, morphological, and geological aspects. The last three chapters are devoted to the problem of origins, and treat of the genesis of life, of the human soul, and of the human body, respectively.

While this book is in no sense a work of “popular science,” I have sought to broaden its scope and interest by combining the scientific with the philosophic viewpoint. Certain portions of the text are unavoidably technical, but there is much, besides, that the general reader will be able to follow without difficulty. Students, especially of biology, geology, and experimental psychology, may use it to advantage as supplementary reading in connection with their textbooks.

I wish to acknowledge herewith my indebtedness to the Editor of the Catholic Educational Review, Rev. George Johnson, Ph. D., to whose suggestion and encouragement the inception of this work was largely due. I desire also to express my sincere appreciation of the services rendered in the revision of the manuscript by the Rev. Edward Wenstrup, O.S.B., Professor of Zoölogy, St. Vincent College, Pennsylvania.

BARRY O’TOOLE.

St. Vincent Archabbey,
January 30, 1925.

PART I EVOLUTION IN GENERAL

CHAPTER I THE PRESENT CRISIS IN EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT

CHAPTER II HOMOLOGY AND ITS EVOLUTIONARY INTERPRETATION

The recent revival of interest in the problem of evolution seems to have called forth two very opposite expressions of opinion from those who profess to represent Catholic thought on this subject. M. Henri de Dorlodot, in his “Le Darwinisme,” appears in the rôle of an ardent admirer of Darwin and an enthusiastic advocate of the doctrine of Transformism. The contrary attitude is adopted by Mr. Alfred McCann, whose “God—or Gorilla” is bitterly antagonistic not only to Darwinism but to any form whatever of the theory of Transformism. Both of these works possess merits which it would be unjust to overlook. Dorlodot deserves credit for having shown conclusively that there is absolutely nothing in the Scriptures, or in Patristic tradition, or in Catholic theology, or in the philosophy of the Schools, which conflicts with our acceptance of organic evolution as an hypothesis explanatory of certain biological facts. In like manner, it must be acknowledged that, even after a liberal discount has been made in penalty of its bias and scientific inaccuracy, Mr. McCann’s book still contains a formidable residue of serious objections, which the friends of evolution will probably find it more convenient to sidestep than to answer.

Unfortunately, however, neither of these writers maintains that balanced mental poise which one likes to see in the defenders of Catholic truth. Dorlodot seems too profoundly impressed with the desirability of occupying a popular position to do impartial justice to the problem at issue, and his anxiety to keep in step with the majority blinds him apparently to the flaws of that “Darwinism” which he praises. Had he been content with a simple demarcation of negative limits, there would be no ground for complaint. But, when he goes so far as to bestow unmerited praise upon the author of the mechanistic “Origin of Species” and the materialistic “Descent of Man”; when, by confounding Darwinism with evolution, he consents to that historical injustice which allows Darwin to play Jacob to Lamarck’s Esau, and which leaves the original genius of Mendel in obscurity while it accords the limelight of fame to the unoriginal expounder of a borrowed conception; when, by means of the sophistry of anachronism, he speciously endeavors to bring the speculations of an Augustine or an Aquinas into alignment with those of the ex-divinity student of Cambridge; when he assumes that Fixism is so evidently wrong that its claims are unworthy of consideration, whereas Transformism is so evidently right that we can dispense with the formality of examining its credentials; when, in a word, he expresses himself not merely in the sense, but in the very stereotyped cant phrases of a dead philosophy, we realize, with regret, that his conclusions are based, not on any reasoned analysis of the evidence, but solely upon the dogmatism of scientific orthodoxy, that his thought is cast in antiquated molds, and that for him, apparently, the sixty-five years of discovery and disillusionment, which have intervened since the publication of the “Origin of Species,” have passed in vain.

But, if Dorlodot represents the extreme of uncritical approval, Mr. McCann represents the opposite, and no less reprehensible, extreme of biased antagonism, that is neither fair in method nor conciliatory in tone. Instead of adhering to the time-honored practice of Catholic controversialists, which is rather to overstate than to understate the argument of an adversary, Mr. McCann tends, at times, to minimize, in his restatement, the force of an opponent’s reasoning. He frequently belittles with mere flippant sneer, and is only too ready to question the good faith of those who do not share his convictions. Thus, when McCann ridicules Wells and accuses him of pure romancing, because the latter speaks of certain hairy “wild women” of the Caves, he himself seems to be ignorant of the fact that a palæolithic etching has been found representing a woman so covered with hair that she had no need of other apparel (the bas-relief from Laugerie-Basse carved on reindeer palm—cf. Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1909, p. 540 and Plate 2).

Mr. McCann may object, with truth, that this is far from being a proof that the primitive representatives of the human race were hairy individuals, but the fact suffices, at least, to acquit Mr. Wells of the charge of unscrupulous invention. Hence, while we have no wish to excuse the lamentable lack of scientific conscientiousness so manifestly apparent in the writings of popularizers of evolution, like Wells, Osborn, and Haeckel, nevertheless common justice, not to speak of charity, constrains us to presume that, occasionally at least, their departures from the norm of objective fact were due to ordinary human fallibility or to the mental blindness induced by preconceptions, rather than to any deliberate intent to deceive. And we feel ourselves impelled to make this allowance for unconscious inaccuracy all the more readily that we are confronted with the necessity of extending the selfsame indulgence to Mr. McCann himself. Thus we find that the seventh illustration in “God—or Gorilla” (opposite p. 56) bears the legend: “Skeletons of man and chimpanzee compared,” when, in point of fact, the ape skeleton in question is not that of a chimpanzee (Troglodytes niger) at all, but of an Orang-utan (Simia satyrus), as the reader may verify for himself by consulting Plate VI of the English version of Wasmann’s “Modern Biology,” where the identical illustration appears above its proper title: “Skeleton of an adult Orang-utan.” Since the error is repeated in the index of illustrations and in the legend of the third illustration of the appendix, it is impossible, in this instance, to shift the responsibility from Mr. McCann to the printer. In any case, it is sincerely to be hoped that this, and several other infelicitous errors will be rectified in the next edition of “God—or Gorilla.”

In the next chapter we shall have occasion to refer again to Dorlodot’s book. For the present, however, his work need not concern us, while in that of Mr. McCann we single out but one point as germane to our subject, namely, the latter’s inadequate rebuttal of the evolutionary argument from homology. The futility of his method, which consists in matching insignificant differences against preponderant resemblances, and in exclaiming with ironic incredulity: “Note extraordinary resemblances!” becomes painfully evident, so soon as proper presentation enables us to appreciate the true force of the argument he is striving to refute. Functionally the foot of a Troglodyte ape may be a “hand,” but structurally it is the homologue of the human foot, and not of the human hand; nor is this homology effectually disposed of by stressing the dissimilarity of the hallux, whilst one remains discreetly reticent concerning the similarity of the calcaneum. For two reasons, therefore, the irrelevance of Mr. McCann’s reply is of special interest here: (1) because it illustrates concretely the danger of rendering a refutation inconsequential and inept by failing to plumb the full depth of the difficulty one is seeking to solve; (2) because it shows that it is vain to attempt to remove man’s body from the scope of this argument by citing the inconsiderable structural differences which distinguish him from the ape, so that, unless the argument from homology proves upon closer scrutiny to be inherently inconclusive, its applicability to the human body is a foregone conclusion, and implies with irresistible logic the common ancestry of men and apes.

Such are the reflections suggested by the meager measure of justice which Mr. McCann accords to the strongest zoölogical evidence in favor of evolution, and they contain in germ a feasible program for the present chapter, which, accordingly, will address itself: first, to the task of ascertaining the true significance of homology in the abstract as well as the full extent of its application in the concrete; second, to that of determining with critical precision its intrinsic value as an argument for the theory of transmutation.

Homology is a technical term used by the systematists of botany, zoölogy and comparative anatomy to signify basic structural similarity as distinguished from superficial functional similarity, the latter being termed analogy. Organisms are said to exemplify the phenomenon of homology when, beneath a certain amount of external diversity, they possess in common a group of correlated internal resemblances of such a nature that the organisms possessing them appear to be constructed upon the same fundamental plan. In cases of this kind, the basic similarity is frequently masked by a veneer of unlikeness, and it is only below this shallow surface of divergence that we find evidences of the identical structure or common type.

Thus organs of different animals are said to be homologous when they are composed of like parts arranged in similar relation to one another. Homologous organs correspond bone for bone and tissue for tissue, so that each component of the one finds its respective counterpart in the other. The organs in question may be functionally specialized and externally differentiated for quite different purposes, but the superficial diversity serves only to emphasize, by contrast, the underlying identity of structure which persists intact beneath it. Thus, for example, the wing of a pigeon, the flipper of a whale, the foreleg of a cat, and the arm of a man are organs differing widely in function as well as outward appearance, but they are called homologous, none the less, because they all exhibit the same basic plan, being composed of similar bones similarly disposed with respect to one another.

Organs, on the other hand, are called analogous which, though fundamentally unlike in structure, are, nevertheless, superficially modified and specialized for one and the same function. The wing of a bird and the wing of an insect furnish a trite instance of such analogy. Functionally they subserve the same purpose, but structurally they bear no relation to each other. In like manner, though both are devoted to the same function, there exists between the leg of a man and the leg of a spider a fundamental disparity in structure.

At times, specialization for the selfsame function involves the emergence of a similar modification or uniform structural adaptation from a substrate of basic dissimilarity. In these instances of parallel modifications appearing on the surface of divergent types, we have something more than mere functional resemblance. Structure is likewise involved, albeit superficially, in the modification which brings about this external uniformity. In such cases, analogy is spoken of as convergence, a phenomenon of which the mole and the mole-cricket constitute a typical example. The burrowing legs of the insect are, so far as outward appearance goes, the exact replica on a smaller scale of those of the mole, though, fundamentally, their structure is quite unlike, the mole being built on the endoskeletal plan of the vertebrates, whereas the mole-cricket is constructed on the exoskeletal plan characteristic of the arthropods. Speaking of the first pair of legs of the mole-cricket, Thomas Hunt Morgan says: “By their use the mole-cricket makes a burrow near the surface of the ground, similar to, but of course much smaller than, that made by the mole. In both of these cases the adaptation is the more obvious, because, while the leg of the mole is formed on the same general plan as that of other vertebrates, and the leg of the mole-cricket has the same fundamental structure as that of other insects, yet in both cases the details of structure and the general proportions have been so altered that the leg is fitted for entirely different purposes from those to which the legs of other vertebrates and other insects are put.” (Quoted by Dwight in “Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist,” p. 235.) In the analogies of convergence, therefore, we have the exact converse of the phenomenon so often encountered in connection with homology. The latter exhibits a contrast between basic identity and superficial diversity, the former a contrast between superficial convergence and fundamental divergence.

Now the extreme importance of homology is manifest from the fact that the taxonomists of zoölogy and botany have found it to be the most satisfactory basis for a scientific classification of animals and plants. In both of these sciences, organisms are arranged in groups according as they possess in common certain points of resemblance whereby they may be referred to this, or that, general type. The resemblance is most complete between members of the same species, which do not differ from one another by any major difference, though they may exhibit certain minor differences justifying their subdivision into varieties or races. These morphological considerations, however, must, in the case of an organic species, be supplemented by the additional physiological criteria of perfect sexual compatibility and normal viability, as we have already had occasion to note in the previous chapter. When organisms, though distinguished from one another by some major difference, agree, notwithstanding, in the main elements of structure, the several species to which they belong are grouped under a common genus, and similarly genera are grouped into families. A relative major difference, such as a difference in the size of the teeth, suffices for the segregation of a new species, while an absolute difference, such as a difference in the number of teeth or the possession of an additional organ, suffices for the segregation of a new genus. In practice, however, the classifications of systematists are often very arbitrary, and we find the latter divided into two factions, the “lumpers” who wish to reduce the number of systematic groups and the “splitters” who have a passion for breaking up larger groups into smaller ones on the basis of tenuous differences. Above the families are the orders, and they, in turn, are assembled in still larger groups called classes, until finally we reach the phyla or branches, which are the supreme categories into which the plant and animal kingdoms are divided. As we ascend the scale of classification, the points of resemblance between the organisms classified are constantly decreasing in number, while the points of difference increase apace. Hence, whereas members of the same species have very much in common, members of the same phylum have very little in common, and members of different phyla show such structural disparity that further correlation on the basis of similarities becomes impossible (in the sense, at least, of a reliable and consistent scheme of classification), all efforts to relate the primary phyla to one another in a satisfactory manner having proved abortive.

Within the confines of each phylum, however, homology is the basic principle of classification. But the scientist is not content to note the bare fact of its existence. He seeks an explanation, he wishes to know the raison d’être of homology. Innumerable threads of similarity run through the woof of divergence, and the question arises: How can we account for the coëxistence of this woof of diversity with a warp of similarity? Certainly, if called upon to explain the similarity existent between members of one and the same species, even the man in the street would resort instinctively to the principle of inheritance and the assumption of common ancestry, exclaiming: “Like sire, like son!” It is a notorious fact that children resemble their parents, and since members of the same species are sexually compatible and perfectly interfertile, there is no difficulty whatever in the way of accepting the presumption of descent from common ancestral stock as a satisfactory solution of the problem of specific resemblance. Now, it is precisely this selfsame principle of heredity which the Transformist invokes to account for generic, no less than for specific, similarity. In fact, he presses it further still, and professes to see therein the explanation of the resemblances observed between members of the different families, orders, and classes, which systematists group under a common phylum. This, of course, amounts to a bold extension of the principle of inheritance far beyond the barriers of interspecific sterility to remote applications that exceed all possibility of experimental verification. Transformists answer this difficulty, however, by contending that the period, during which the human race has existed, has been, geologically speaking, all too brief, and characterized by environmental conditions much too uniform, to afford us a favorable opportunity for ascertaining the extreme limits to which the genetic process may possibly extend; and, even apart from this consideration, they say, racial development (phylogeny) may be, like embryological development (ontogeny) an irreversible process, in which case no recurrence whatever of its past phenomena are to be expected in our times.

Be that as it may, the evolutionist interprets the resemblances of homology as surviving vestiges of an ancient ancestral type, which have managed to persist in the descendants notwithstanding the transformations wrought in the latter by the process of progressive divergence. Moreover, just as the existence of a common ancestor is inferred from the fact of resemblance, so the relative position in time of the common ancestor is inferred from the degree of resemblance. The common ancestor of forms closely allied is assumed to have been proximate, that of forms but distantly resembling each other is thought to have been remote. Thus the common ancestor of species grouped under the same genus is supposed to have been less remote than the common ancestor of all the genera grouped under one family. The same reasoning is applied, mutatis mutandis, to the ancestry of families, orders and classes.

The logic of such inferences may be questioned, but there is no blinking the fact that, in practice, the genetic explanation of homology is assumed by scientists to be the only reasonable one possible. In fact, so strong is their confidence in the necessity of admitting a solution of this kind, that they do not hesitate to make it part and parcel of the definition of homology itself. For instance, on page 130 of Woodruff’s “Foundations of Biology” (1922), we are informed that homology signifies “a fundamental similarity of structure based on descent from a common antecedent form.” The Yale professor, however, has been outdone in this respect by Professor Calkins of Columbia, who discards the anatomical definition altogether and substitutes, in lieu thereof, its evolutionary interpretation. “When organs have the same ancestry,” he says, “that is, when they come from some common part of an ancestral type, they are said to be homologous.” (“Biology,” p. 165.) In short, F. A. Bather is using a consecrated formula culled from the modern biological creed when he says: “The old form of diagnosis was per genus et differentiam. The new form is per proavum et modificationem.” (Science, Sept. 17, 1920, p. 259.)

A moment’s reflection, however, will make it clear that, in thus confounding the definition proper with its theoretical interpretation, the modern biologist is guilty of a logical atrocity. Homology, after all, is a simple anatomical fact, which can be quite adequately defined in terms of observation; nor is the definition improved in the least by having its factual elements diluted with explanatory theory. On the contrary, the definition is decidedly weakened by such redundancy. And as for those who insist on defining homology in terms of atavistic assumption instead of structural affinity, their procedure is tantamount to defining the clear by means of the obscure, an actual effect by means of a possible cause. Moreover, this attempt to load the dice in favor of Transformism by tampering with the definition of homology ends by defeating its own purpose. For, if homology is to serve as a legitimate argument for evolution, then obviously evolution must not be included in its definition; otherwise, the conclusion is anticipated in the premise, the question is begged, and the argument itself rendered a vicious circle.

Having formed a sufficiently clear conception of homology as a static fact, we are now in a position to consider the problem of its causality with reference to the solution proposed by evolutionists. Transmutation, they tell us, results from the interaction of a twofold process, namely, the conservative and similifying process called inheritance, and progressive and diversifying process known as variation. Inheritance by transmitting the ancestral likeness tends to bring about uniformity. Variation by diverting old currents into new channels adjust organisms to new situations and brings about modification. Homology, therefore, is the effect of inheritance, while adaptedness or modification is the product of variation.

As here used, the term inheritance denotes something more than a mere recurrence of parental characters in the offspring. It signifies a process of genuine transmission from generation to generation. Strictly speaking, it is not the characters, such as coloration, shape, size, chemical composition, structural type, and functional specificity, that are “inherited,” but rather the hereditary factors or chromosomal genes, which are actually transmitted, and of which the characters are but an external expression or manifestation. Hence, it is scarcely accurate to speak of “inherited,” as distinguished from “acquired,” characters. As a matter of fact, all somatic characters are joint products of the interaction of germinal and environmental factors. Consequently, the external character would be affected no less by a change in the environmental factors than by a change in the germinal factors. In a word, somatic characters are not the exclusive expression of the genetic factors, but are equally dependent upon environmental influence, and hence it is only to the extent that these characters are indicative of the specific constitution of the germ plasm that we may speak of them as “inherited,” remembering that what is really transmitted to the offspring is a complex of genes or germinal factors, and not the characters themselves. The sense is, therefore, that “inherited” characters are manifestative of what is contained in the germ plasm, whereas “acquired” characters have no specific germinal basis, but are a resultant of the interaction between the somatic cells and the environment. In modern terminology, as we have seen, the aggregate of germinal factors transmitted in the process of reproduction is called the genotype, while the aggregate of somatic characters which manifest these germinal factors externally is spoken of as the phenotype. Only the genotype is transmitted, the phenotype being the subsequent product of the interplay of genetic factors and environmental stimuli, dependent upon, and expressive of, both.

Variation, therefore, may be based upon a change in the germ plasm, or in the environment, or in both. If it rests exclusively upon an extraordinary change in the environmental conditions, the resulting modification is non-inheritable, and will disappear so soon as the exceptional environmental stimulus that evoked it is withdrawn. If, on the contrary, it is based upon a germinal change, it will manifest itself, even under ordinary, i.e. unchanged or uniform environmental influence. In this case, the modification is inheritable in the sense that it is the specific effect of a transmissible germinal factor, which has undergone alteration.

As we have seen in the foregoing chapter, there are three kinds of germinal change which result in “inheritable” modifications. The first is called factorial mutation, and is initiated by an alteration occurring in one or more of the chromosomal genes. The second is called chromosomal mutation, and is caused by duplication (or reduction) of the chromosomes. The third may be termed recombination, one type of which results from the crossover or exchange of genes between pairing chromosomes (“pseudomutation”), the other from random assortment in accordance with the Mendelian law of the independence of allelomorphic pairs. This so-called “random assortment of the chromosomes” is the result of the shuffling and free deals of the chromosomal cards of heredity which take place twice in the life-cycle of organisms: viz. first, in the process of gametic reduction (meiosis); second, in the chance meeting of variously-constituted sperms and eggs in fertilization. A mischance of the first of these “free deals” is bewailed in the following snatch from a parody belonging to the Woods Hole anthology.

These kinds of variation, however, in so far as they fall within the range of actual observation, are confined within the limits of the organic species. Intra-specific variation, however, will not suffice. To account for the adaptive modifications superimposed upon underlying structural identity, Transformism is obliged to assume the possibility of trans-specific variation. Yet in none of the foregoing processes of variation do we find a valid factual basis for this assumption.

Factorial mutation, for instance, waiving its failure to produce naturally-viable forms, or to meet the physiological sterility test of a new species, admits of interpretation as a change of loss due to the “dropping out” of a gene from the germinal complex. Bateson’s conception of evolution as a process consisting in the gradual loss of inhibitive genes, whose elimination releases suppressed potentialities, seems rather incredible. Many will be inclined to see in Castle’s facetious epigram a reductio ad absurdum of Bateson’s suggestion; for, according to the latter’s view, as the Harvard professor remarks, we should have to regard man as a simplified amœba. Certainly, it seems nothing short of a contradiction to ascribe the progressive complication of the phenotype to a simplification of the genotype by loss.

On the other hand, not only is there no experimental evidence of a germinal change by positive acquisition, that is, by the addition of genes, but it is hard to conceive how such a change could come about. “At first,” admits Bateson, “it may seem rank absurdity to suppose that the primordial form or forms of protoplasm could have contained complexity enough to produce the divers types of life.” “But,” he asks, “is it easier to imagine that these powers could have been conveyed by extrinsic addition? Of what nature could these additions be? Additions of material can not surely be in question. We are told that salts of iron in the soil may turn a pink hydrangea blue. The iron cannot be passed on to the next generation. How can iron multiply itself? The power to assimilate iron is all that can be transmitted. A disease-producing organism like the pebrine of silkworms can in a very few cases be passed on through the germ cells. But it does not become part of the invaded host, and we can not conceive it taking part in the geometrically ordered processes of segregation. These illustrations may seem too gross; but what refinement will meet the requirements of the problem, that the thing introduced must be, as the living organism itself is, capable of multiplication and of subordinating itself in a definite system of segregation?” (Heredity, Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1915, p. 373.)

Nor can we agree with Prof. T. H. Morgan’s contention that the foregoing difficulty of Bateson has been solved by the discovery of the chromosomal mutation. All unbalanced chromosomal mutants are subnormal in their viability and vitality, not to speak of their marked sterility. Haploidy represents a regressive, rather than a progressive, step. The triploid mutant is sterile. The tetraploid race of Daturas is inferior in fertility to the normal diploid plant. The origin of balanced tetraploidy from diploidy must be presumed, since it has never been observed. Moreover, tetraploidy represents only quantitative, and not qualitative, progress. The increased mass of the nucleus produces an enlargement of the cytoplasm, the result of which is giantism. This effect, however, is not specific; for giant and normal races possessing each the same number of chromosomes are known to exist in nature. Hence giantism may be due to other causes besides chromosomal duplication. The only effect of this doubling is a reinforcement and intensification of the former effect of the genetic factors, their specificity remaining unchanged. Double doses are substituted for single doses of the factors, but nothing really new is added. Morgan himself recognizes that this mere repetition of identical genes is insufficient, and that their multiplication must be qualitative as well as numerical, to answer the specifications of a progressive step in evolution. Hence he suggests that the chromosomal mutation is subsequently supplemented by appropriate factorial mutation. Once this supposition is made, however, all the objections we have mentioned in connection with factorial mutation (e.g. the subnormality of its products, its intra-specific nature, etc.) return to plague the speculator, and, in addition to these, he is confronted with the new difficulty of explaining how the redundance of duplicate genes can be removed and replaced by coördinate differentiation in their respective specificities. Now we have no factual evidence whatever of such a solidaric redifferentiation of the germinal factors, that would modify harmoniously the composition and rôle of each and every gene in the factorial complex. Nor is there any possibility whatever of accounting for this telic superregulation of the germinal regulators upon a purely mechanistic basis. How can the ultimate chemical determinants of heredity be thus redetermined? Consequently, although there is gametic incompatibility between diploid races and the tetraploid races, which are said to have arisen from the former, we are not, nevertheless, warranted, by what has been experimentally verified, in regarding tetraploid races as new species, or as progressive steps in the process of organic evolution.

To conclude, therefore, we have experimental verification of the efficacy of the similifying process said to have been at work in evolution, namely, inheritance. The same, however, cannot be said of the correlative diversifying process of trans-specific variation, which is said to have superficially modified old structures into new species. The latter process, accordingly, is but a pure postulate of science known to us only through the effect hypothetically assigned to it, namely, the adaptive modification.

The adaptation, however, of which there is question here is not to be confounded with the “acquired adaptation” of Lamarckian fame; for, unlike the latter, it is an inheritable modification rooted in the germ plasm. Adaptations of this sort do, indeed, adjust the organism to its external environment, but they are innate and not acquired. Hence they are often spoken of as preadaptations; for they precede, in a sense, the organism’s contact with the environing element to which they adjust it. They may possibly, it is true, have been acquired in the distant past, but they have now a specific germinal foundation, and no one was ever privileged to witness their initial production de novo. The whale, for example, though fundamentally a warm-blooded mammal, is superficially a fish, by reason of such a preadaptation to its marine environment. Preadaptation is of common occurrence, especially among parasites, symbiotes, commensals, and inquilines. Wasmann cites innumerable instances of beetles and flies so profoundly modified, in accommodation to their mode of life as guests in termite nests, that the systematist hesitates to classify them under any of the accepted orders of insects. Here the adaptive modification so disturbs the underlying homology as to make of these creatures taxonomical ambiguities. In the case of Termitomyia, he tells us, “the whole development of the individual has been so modified that it resembles that of a viviparous mammal rather than that of a fly.” (“The Problem of Evolution,” pp. 14, 15.)

Such modifications, however, amount to major, and not merely minor, differences. We are not dealing, therefore, with varietal distinctions here, but with specific, generic, and even ordinal differences. With reference to the phenomenon of adaptive modification,[3] three things, consequently, are worthy of note: (1) it has the semblance of being adventitious to the underlying structural uniformity; (2) it is of such magnitude that it cannot be ascribed to variation within the species; (3) it has been appropriated by the hereditary process, in the sense that it is now an “inherited” character based on the transmission of specific germinal factors.

Now it is claimed that for the occurrence of this kind of modification in conjunction with homology only one rational explanation is possible, and that explanation is evolution. If this contention be a sound one, and Dorlodot, who claims certitude for the evolutionary solution, insists that it is such, then, in the name of sheer logical consistency, but one course lies open to us. We cannot stop at Wasmann’s comma,[4] we must press on to the very end of the evolutionary sentence and sing with the choristers of Woods Hole:

In this predicament it will not do, as we shall see presently, to adopt Mr. McCann’s expedient of balancing anatomical differences against anatomical resemblances. To do so is to court certain and ignominious defeat. We must, therefore, examine the argument dispassionately. If it be solid, we must accept it and give it general application. If it be unsound, we must detect its flaws and expose them. Intellectual honesty allows us no alternative!

Moreover, in weighing the argument from organic homology we must not lose sight of the two important considerations previously stressed: (1) that the inference of common ancestry in the case of homologous forms is based, not upon this or that particular likeness, but upon an entire group of coördinated resemblances; (2) that the resemblances involved are not exterior similarities, but deep-seated structural uniformities perfectly compatible with diversities of a superficial and functional character. “Nothing,” says Dr. W. W. Keen, “could be more unlike externally than the flipper of a whale and the arm of a man. Yet you find in the flipper the shoulderblade, humerus, radius, ulna, and a hand with the bones of four fingers masked in a mitten of skin.” (Science, June 9, 1922, p. 605.)

In fact, the resemblances may, in certain instances, be so deeply submerged that they no longer appear in the adult organism at all and are only in evidence during a transitory phase of the embryological process. In such cases, the embryo or larva exhibits, at a particular stage, traces of a uniformity completely obliterated from the adult form. In short, though frequently presented as a distinct argument, embryological similarity, together with all else of value that can still be salvaged from the wreck of the Müller-Haeckel Law of Embryonic Recapitulation, is, at bottom, identical with the general evolutionary argument from homology. In the latter argument we are directed to look beneath the modified surface of the adult organism for surviving vestiges of the ancestral type. In the former, we are bidden to go deeper still, to the extent, that is, of descending into the very embryological process itself, in order to discover lingering traces of the ancestral likeness, which, though now utterly deleted from the transformed adult, are yet partially persistent in certain embryonic phases.

In sectioning a larval specimen of the fly-like termite-guest known as Termitoxenia Heimi, Father Wasmann came across a typical exemplification of this embryological atavism. In the adult insect, a pair of oar-like appendages replace the wings characteristic of the Diptera (flies). These appendages are organs of exudation, which elaborate a secretion whereof the termites are very fond, and thereby render their possessors welcome guests in the nests of their hosts. The appendages, therefore, though now undoubtedly inherited characters, are the specific means by which these inquilines are adapted to their peculiar environment and mode of life among the termites. Moreover, the organs in question not only differ from wings functionally, but, in the adult, they bear no structural resemblance whatever to the wings of flies. Nevertheless, on examining his sections of the above-mentioned specimen, Wasmann found a developmental stage of brief duration during which wing veins appeared in the posterior branches of the embryonic appendages. Now, assuming that Wasmann’s technique was faultless, his specimen normal, and his interpretation correct, it is rather difficult to avoid his conclusion that we have here, in this transitory larval phase, the last surviving vestige of ancestral wings now wholly obliterated from the adult type, that, consequently, this wingless termite guest is genetically related to the winged Diptera, and that we must see in the appendages aboriginal wings diverted from their primitive function and respecialized for the quite different purpose of serving as organs of exudation, (cf. “Modern Biology,” p. 385.) Indeed, phenomena of this kind seem to admit of no other explanation than the atavistic one. It should be remembered, however, that Wasmann does not appear to have verified the observation in more than one specimen, and that a larger number of representative specimens would have to be accurately sectioned, strained, examined and interpreted, before any reliable conclusion could be drawn.[5]

Such, in its most general aspect, is the atavistic solution of the problem presented by the homology of types. In it, similarity and diversity are harmoniously reconciled, in the sense that they affect, respectively, different structural, or different developmental, levels. It is futile, therefore, to look for contradictions where they do not exist. In a word, the attempt to create opposition between a group of basic and correlated uniformities, on the one hand, and some particular external difference, on the other, is not only abortive, but absolutely irrelevant as well. The reason is obvious. Only when likeness is associated with unlikeness is it an argument for Transmutation. Likeness alone would demonstrate Immutability by indicating a process of pure inheritance as distinguished from the process of variation. Hence evolutionists do not merely concede the coëxistence of diversity with similarity, they gladly welcome this fact as vitally necessary to their contention.

Now it is precisely this point which Mr. McCann, like many other critics of evolution, fails utterly to apprehend. Consequently, his efforts to extricate the human foot from the toils of simian homology are entirely unavailing. To offset the force of the argument in question, it is by no means sufficient, as he apparently imagines, to point to the fact that, unlike the hallux of the ape, the great toe in man is non-opposable (cf. “God—or Gorilla,” pp. 183, 184, and legends under cuts opposite pp. 184 and 318). The evolutionist will reply at once that the non-opposability of man’s great toe is correlated with the specialization of the human foot for progression only, as distinguished from prehension; while, in the ape, whose foot has retained both the progressive and the prehensile function, the hallux is naturally opposable in adaptation to the animal’s arboreal habits. He will then call attention to the undeniable fact that, despite these adaptational differences, the bones in the foot of a Troglodyte ape are, bone for bone, the counterparts of the bones in the human foot and not of those in the human hand. He will readily concede, that, so far as function and adaptedness go, this simian foot is a “hand,” but he will not fail to point out that it is, at the same time, a heeled hand equipped with a calcaneum, a talus, a navicular, a cuboid, and all other structural elements requisite to ally it to the human foot and distinguish it from the human hand. In fact, Mr. McCann’s own photographs of the gorilla skeleton show these features quite distinctly, though he himself, for some reason or other, fails to speak of them. It is to be feared, however, that his adversaries may not take a charitable view of his reticence concerning the simian heel, but may be inclined to characterize his silence as “discreet,” all the more so, that he himself has uncomplimentarily credited them with similar discretions in their treatment of unmanageable facts. In short, Mr. McCann’s case against homology resembles the Homeric hero, Achilles, in being vulnerable at the “heel.” At all events, the homology itself is an undeniable fact, and it is vain to tilt against this fact in the name of adaptational adjustments like “opposability” and “non-opposability.” Since, therefore, our author has failed to prove that this feature is too radical to be classed as an adaptive modification, our only hope of exempting the human skeleton from the application of the argument in question is to show that argument itself is inconsequential.

Mr. McCann’s predicament resembles that of the unlucky disputant, who having allowed a questionable major to pass unchallenged, strives to retrieve his mistake by picking flaws in a flawless minor. As Dwight has well said of the human body, “it differs in degree only from that of apes and monkeys,” and “if we compare the individual bones with those of apes we cannot fail to see the correspondence.” (“Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist,” p. 149.) In short, there exists no valid anatomical consideration whatever to justify us in subtracting the human frame from the extension of the general conclusion deduced from homology. Whosoever, therefore, sees in the homology of organic forms conclusive evidence of descent from a common ancestor, cannot, without grave inconsistency, reject the doctrine of the bestial origin of man. He may still, it is true, exclude the human mind or soul from the evolutionary account of origins, but, if homology is, in any sense, a sound argument for common descent, the evolutionary origin of the human body is a foregone conclusion, and none of the anatomical “differences in degree” will avail to spare us the humiliation of sharing with the ape a common family-tree. It remains for us, then, to reëxamine the argument critically for the purpose of determining as precisely as possible its adequacy as a genuine demonstration.

To begin with, it must be frankly acknowledged that here the theory of transformism is, to all appearances, upon very strong ground. Its first strategic advantage over the theory of immutability consists in the fact that, unlike the latter, its attitude towards the problem is positive and not negative. When challenged to explain the structural uniformities observed in organic Nature, the theory of immutability is mute, because it knows of no second causes or natural agencies adequate to account for the facts. It can only account for homology by ascribing the phenomenon exclusively to the unity of the First Cause, and, while this may, of course, be the true and sole explanation, to assume it is tantamount to removing the problem altogether from the province of natural science. Hence it is not to be wondered at that scientists prefer the theory of transformism, which by assigning intermediate causes between the First Cause and the ultimate effects, vindicates the problem of organic origins for natural science, in assuming the phenomena to be proximately explicable by means of natural agencies. Asked whether he believes that God created the now exclusively arboreal Sloth (Bradypus) in a tree, the most uncompromising defender of fixism will hesitate to reply in the affirmative. Yet, in this case, what is nowadays, at least, an inherited preadaptation, dedicates the animal irrevocably to tree-life, and makes its survival upon the ground impossible.

Analogous preadaptations occur in conjunction with the phenomena of parasitism, symbiosis and commensalism, all of which offer instances of otherwise disparate and unrelated organisms that are inseparably bound together, in some apparently capricious and fortuitous respect, by a preadaptation of the one to the other. Parasites, guests, or symbiotes, as the case may be, they are now indissolubly wedded to some determinate species of host by reason of an appropriate and congenital adjustment. For all that, however, the association seems to be a contingent one, and it appears incredible that the associates were always united, as at present, by bonds of reciprocal advantage, mutual dependence, or one-sided exploitation. Yet the basis of the relationship is in each case a now inherited adaptation, which, if it does not represent the primitive condition of the race, must at some time have been acquired. For phenomena such as these, orthogenesis, which makes an organ the exclusive product of internal factors, conceiving it as a preformed mechanism that subsequently selects a suitable function, has no satisfactory explanation. Lamarckism, which asserts the priority of function and makes the environment mold the organ, is equally inacceptable, in that it flouts experience and ignores the now demonstrated existence of internal hereditary factors. But, if between these two extremes some evolutionary via media could be found, one must confess that it would offer the only conceivable “natural explanation” of preadaptation.[6] All this, of course, is pure speculation, but it serves to show that here, at any rate, the theory of Transformism occupies a position from which it cannot easily be dislodged.

But, besides the advantage of being able to offer a “natural explanation” of the association of homology with adaptation, Transformism enjoys the additional advantage of being able to make the imagination its partisan by means of a visual appeal. Such an appeal is always more potent than that of pure logic stripped of sensuous imagery. When it comes to vividness and persuasiveness, the syllogism is no match for the object-lesson. Retinal impressions have a hypnotic influence that is not readily exorcised by considerations of an abstract order—“Segnius irritant demissa per aurem, Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus,” says Horace, in the “Ars Poetica.” Philosophers may distinguish between the magnetic appeal of a graphic presentation and the logical cogency of the doctrine so presented, but there is no denying that, in practice, imagination is often mistaken for reason and persuasion for conviction. Be that as it may, the ordinary method of bringing home to the student the evolutionary significance of homology is certainly one that utilizes to the full all the advantages of visual presentation. Given a class of impressionable premedics and coeds; given an instructor’s table with skeletons of a man, a flamingo, an ape and a dog hierarchically arranged thereon; given an instructor sufficiently versed in comparative osteology to direct attention to the points in which the skeletons concur: and there can be no doubt whatever as to the psychological result. The student forms spontaneously the notion of a common vertebrate type, and the instructor assures him that this “general type” is not, as it would be with respect to other subject matter, a mere universal idea with no formal existence outside the mind, but rather a venerable family likeness, posed for originally by a single pair of ancestors (or could it possibly have been, by one self-fertilizing hermaphrodite?) and recopied from generation to generation, with certain variations on the original theme, by the hand of an artist called Heredity. This explanation may be true, but logically consequential it is not. However, if the dialectic is poor, the pedagogy is beyond reproach, and the solution proposed has in its favor the fact that it accords well with the student’s limited experience. He is aware of the truism that children resemble their parents. Why look for more recondite explanations when one so obvious is at hand? The atavistic theory gratifies his instinct for simplification, and, if he be of a mechanistic turn of mind, the alternative conception of creationism is quite intolerable. Nevertheless, it goes without saying that the “inference” of common descent from the data of homology is not a ratiocination at all, it is only a simple apprehension, a mere abstraction of similarity from similars—“Unde quaecumque inveniuntur convenire in aliqua intentione intellecta,” says Aquinas, “voluerunt quod convenirent in una re.” (In lib. II sent., dist. 17, q. I, a. 1) Philosophy tells us that the oneness of the universal is conceptual and not at all extramental or real, but the transformist insists that the universal types of Zoölogy and Botany are endowed with real as well as logical unity, that real unity being the unity of the common ancestor.

Certainly, from the standpoint of practical effectiveness, the evolutionary argument leaves little to be desired. The presentation is graphic and the solution simple. But for the critic, to whom logical sequence is of more moment than psychological appeal, this is not enough. To withstand the gnawing tooth of Time and the remorseless probing of corrosive human reason, theories must rest on something sounder than a mirage of visual imagery!

But is it fair thus to characterize the “common ancestors” of Transformism as figments which, like all other abstractions, have no extramental existence apart from the concrete objects whence they were conceived? To be sure, their claim to be real entities cannot be substantiated by direct observation or experiment, and so a factual proof is out of the question. Man, the late-comer, not having been present at the birth of organic forms, can give no reliable testimony regarding their parentage. In like manner, no a priori proof from the process of inheritance is available, because heredity, as revealed to us by the experimental science of Genetics, can account for specific resemblances only, and cannot be invoked, at present, as an empirically tested explanation for generic, ordinal, or phyletic resemblances. It has still to be demonstrated experimentally that the hereditary process is transcendental to limits imposed by specific differentiation. There remains, however, the a posteriori argument, which interprets homology and adaptation as univocal effects ascribable to no other agency than the dual process of inheritance and variation. What are we to think of this argument? Does it generate certainty in the mind, or merely probability?

A moment’s reflection will bring to light the preliminary flaw of incomplete enumeration of possibilities. To suppose that inheritance alone can account for structural resemblance is an unwarranted assumption. Without a doubt, there are other similifying influences at work in Nature besides inheritance. True, inheritance is one possible explanation of the similarity of organisms, but it is not the only one. Even among the chemical elements of inorganic nature we find analogous uniformities or “family traits,” which, in the absence of any reproductive process whatever, we cannot possibly attribute to inheritance. Mendeléeff’s discovery of the periodicity of the elements, arranged in the order of their atomic weights, is well-known. At each interval of an octave, a succession of chemical types, similar to those of the preceding octave, recur. Hence elements appearing in the same vertical column of the Periodic Table have many properties in common and exhibit what may be called a family resemblance. Now, we have in the process of atomic disintegration, as observed in radioactive elements and interpreted by the electronic theory of atomic structure, a reasonably satisfactory basis upon which to account for the existence of these inorganic uniformities. Here analogous chemical constitution, produced in accordance with a general law, results in uniformity that implies a similar, rather than an identical, cause. The hypothesis of parallelistic derivation from similar independent origins accounts quite as well for the observed uniformities as does the hypothesis of divergent derivation from a single common origin. Why, then, should we lean so heavily on the already overtaxed principle of inheritance, when parallelism is as much a possibility in the organic world as it is an actuality in the inorganic world?

As to the contrast here drawn between inheritance and other similifying factors, it is hardly necessary to remark that we are speaking of inheritance as defined in terms of Mendelian experiment and cytological observation. In the so-called chemical theory of inheritance, the distinction would be meaningless and the contrast would not exist. Ehrlich’s disciple, Adami, sets aside all self-propagating germinal determinants, like the chromomeres, in favor of a hypothetical “biophoric molecule,” which is to be conceived as a benzine-like ring bristling with sidechains. Around this determining core the future organism is built up in definite specificity, as an arch is constructed about a template. Adami has merely applied Paul Ehrlich’s ideas concerning metabolism and immunity to the question of heredity, commandeering for this purpose the latter’s entire toolkit of receptors, haptophores, amboceptors, etc., as though this grotesque paraphernalia of crude and clumsy mechanical symbols (which look for all the world like the wrenches of a machinist, or the lifters used by the cook to remove hot lids from the kitchen range) could throw any valuable light whatsoever on the exceedingly complex, and manifestly vital, phenomenon of inheritance. It does not even deserve to be called a chemical theory, for, as Starling correctly remarks concerning Ehrlich’s conception, “though chemical in form,” it is not so in reality, because “it does not explain the phenomenon by reference to the known laws of chemistry.” (Cf. Physiology, ed. of 1920, p. 1084.) In a word, the theory of heredity, which seeks to strip inheritance of its uniqueness as a vital process by identifying it with the more general physicochemical processes occurring in the organism, is a groundless speculation, that, far from explaining, flouts the very observational data which it pretends to elucidate. Kurz und gut! to requite the mechanist, Schäfer, with his own Danielesque phrase, here, as elsewhere, the mechanists have succeeded in extracting from the facts, not what the facts themselves proclaim, but what preëxisted in their own highly-cultured imaginations so well-stocked with cogs, cranks, ball bearings, and other æsthetic imagery emanating from polytechnic schools and factories.

But in arguing from the existence of parallelism in the inorganic world to its possibility in the organic world, we are less liable to displease the mechanists than those other extremists, the neo-vitalists, who will be prone to deny all parity between living, and inanimate, matter. Fortunately, we are in a position to appease the scruples of the latter by referring to the facts of convergence as universally accepted evidence that the phenomenon of parallelism occurs in animate, no less than inanimate, nature. Admitting, therefore, that the laws of organic morphology are of a higher order than those which regulate atomic, molecular, and multimolecular structure, these facts attest, nevertheless, that parallelisms arise in organisms of separate ancestry which are due, not to heredity, but to the uniform action of universal morphogenetic forces. Hence general laws can be invoked to account for organic uniformities with the same right that they are invoked to account for resemblances existing between the various members of a chemical “family” like the Halogens. And why should this not be so? Organisms have much in common that transcends any possible scheme of evolution and that cannot be brought into alignment with the position arbitrarily assigned them in the evolutionary family-tree. They all originate as single cells. Their common means of growth and reproduction is mitotic cell division. This leads to the production of a somatella, among the protista, and of a soma differentiated by histogenesis into two or three primary tissues, among the metista. All these fundamental processes are strikingly uniform throughout the entire plant and animal world. In these universal properties of living matter, therefore, we have a common basis for general structural and organizational laws, which, though irreducible to the “common ancestors” of Transformism, is quite adequate to account for both the homologies and analogies of living matter. Accept this basis of general laws regulating the development of living matter, and there is no difficulty in seeing why the problems posed by exposure to analogous environmental conditions are solved in parallel fashion by organisms, irrespective of whether they are nearly, or distantly, related in the sense of morphology. Transformism, on the other hand, can only account for homology at the expense of convergence, and for convergence at the expense of homology. So far as a common ancestral basis is concerned, the two kinds of resemblance are, from the very nature of the case, irreducible phenomena.

It is only, in fact, by surrendering the principle that similarity entails community of origin, and by falling back on the suggested common basis of general laws, that Transformism makes room in its system for the troublesome facts of convergence. “It might be reiterated in passing,” says Dwight, “that this ‘convergence’ business is a very ticklish one. We have been taught almost word for word that resemblance implies relationship, or almost predicates it; but according to this doctrine it has nothing to do with it whatever.” (“Thoughts of a Cath. Anat.,” p. 190.) And in a subsequent chapter he says: “No very deep knowledge of comparative anatomy is needed for us to know that very similar adaptations for particular purposes are found in very diverse animals. The curious low grade mammal, the Ornithorhynchus, with a hairy coat and the bill of a duck, is a familiar instance. We all know that the whales have the general form of the fish, although they are mammals, and going more into details we know that the whale’s flipper is on the same general plan as that of the ancient saurians.... The origin of the eye, according to evolutionary doctrines, has been a very difficult problem, which gets worse rather than better the more you do for it. Even if we could persuade ourselves that certain cells blundered along by the lucky mating of individuals in whom they were a bit better developed than in the others till they came to form a most complicated organ of sight, it would be a sufficient tax on our credulity to believe that this could come off successfully in some extraordinary lucky species; but that it should have turned out so well with all kinds of vertebrates is really too much to ask us to swallow. But this is not all: eyes are very widely spread among different classes of invertebrates. More wonderful still, the eyes of certain molluscs and crustacea are on stalks, and this is found also in various and very different families of fishes. How did this happen? Was it by way of descent from the molluscs or the crustacea? If not, how could chance have brought about such a similar result in diverse forms?” (Op. cit., pp. 233-236.)

It may be objected that the resemblances of convergence are superficial analogies, not to be confounded with fundamental homologies. This contention may be disputed; for, as we shall see in the next chapter, there are cases where the convergence is admittedly radical, and not merely superficial. The distinction, moreover, between shallow and basic characters is somewhat arbitrary, and its validity is often questionable. When the skeletal homology that relates the amphibia to the mammals, for instance, is traced to the root of the vertebrate family tree, we find it all but disappearing in a primitive Amphioxus-like chordate, whose so-called skeleton contains no trace of bone or cartilage. Hence, if we go back far enough, the homologies of today become the convergences of a geological yesterday, and we find the vertebrate type of skeleton arising independently in reptiles, mammals, amphibia, and fishes.

Again, there are times when convergent analogies appear to be more representative of the common racial heritage than the underlying structure itself, tempting the evolutionist to fly in the face of the orthodox interpretation, which rigidly rules out analogy in favor of homology, and refuses to accept the eloquent testimony of a remarkable resemblance merely because of a slight technical discrepancy in the structural substrate. A large pinching claw, or chela, for example, occurs in two organisms belonging to the phylum of the arthropods, namely, the lobster and the African scorpion. Both chelæ are practically identical in structure, but, unfortunately, the chela of the lobster arises from a different appendage than that from which the scorpion’s chela emerges. If they arose from corresponding appendages, they would be pronounced “homologous organs” and acclaimed, without hesitation, as strong evidence in favor of the common origin of all the arthropods. In proof of this, we call attention to the importance attached to the adaptations affecting homologous bones in fossil “horses.” As it is, however, the two chelæ are analogous, and not homologous, organs. Hence, technically speaking, the two chelæ are utterly unrelated structures. To the eye of common sense, however, the likeness appears to be far more important than the difference, and the average person will be inclined to view the resemblance as evidence of a community of type. In fact, the tendency to discard superficial, and to retain only fundamental, uniformities, is dangerous to the theory of Transformism. When we confine our attention to what is really basic, we find that the resemblances become so generalized and widespread that specific conclusions as to descent become impossible, and we lose all sense of direction in a clueless labyrinth of innumerable, yet mutually contradictory, possibilities.

Finally, it may be noted in passing that, though it is customary with evolutionists to regard homologous characters as the tenaciously persistent heritage of primeval days, and to look upon adaptational characters as adventitious and accessory to the aforesaid primitive heritage, the supposedly older and more fundamental characters fail to give, by the manifestation of greater fixity, any empirical evidence whatever of their being more deeply or firmly rooted in the hereditary process than the presumably newer adaptational characters. We have, therefore, no experimental warrant for appropriating homologous, rather than adaptational, characters to the process of inheritance. “It is sometimes asserted,” says Goodrich, “that old-established characters are inherited, and that newly begotten ones are not, or are less constant, in their reappearance. This statement will not bear critical examination. For, on the one hand, it has been conclusively shown by experimental breeding that the newest characters may be inherited as constantly as the most ancient.... While, on the other hand, few characters in plants can be older than the green color due to chlorophyll, yet it is sufficient to cut off the light from a germinating seed for the greenness to fail to appear. Again, ever since Devonian times vertebrates have inherited paired eyes; yet, as Professor Stockard has shown, if a little magnesium chloride is added to the sea water in which the eggs of the fish Fundulus are developing, they will give rise to embryos with one median cyclopean eye! Nor is the suggestion any happier that the, so to speak, more deep-seated and fundamental characters are more constantly inherited than the trivial or superficial. A glance at the organisms around us, or the slightest experimental trial, soon convinces us that the apparently least important character may reappear as constantly as the most fundamental. But while an organism may live without some trivial character, it can rarely do so when a fundamental character is absent, hence such incomplete individuals are seldom met in Nature.” (Science, Dec. 2, 1921, p. 530.)

But, whether it be upon, or beneath, the surface, similitude of any kind suffices to establish our contention that inheritance is not the only similifying influence present in organisms, and that resemblance is perfectly compatible with independence of ancestry. We have, therefore, an alternative for inheritance in the explanation of organic uniformities, and by the admission of this alternative, which, for the rest, is factually attested by the universally acknowledged phenomena of convergence, the inference of common descent from structural resemblance is shorn of the last remnant of its demonstrative force, as an a posteriori argument.

But a still more serious objection to the evolutionary interpretation of homology and preadaptation arises from its intrinsic incoherency. Evolution, as previously stated, is assumed to be the resultant of a twofold process, namely, inheritance and variation. The first is a conservative and similifying process, which transmits. The second is a progressive and diversifying process, which diverts. To the former process are due the uniformities of homology, to the latter the deviations of adaptation. Upon the admission of evolutionists themselves, however, neither of these processes behaves in a manner consistent with its general nature, and both of them are flagrantly unfaithful to the principal rôles assigned to them. Nowadays the hereditary process transmits adaptational, as well as homologous, characters. If, then, adaptational characters are more recent than homologous characters, there must have been a time when inheritance ceased to similify and become a diversifying process by transmitting what it did not receive from the previous generation. There were times when, not content with simply reiterating the past, it began to divert former tendencies into novel channels. In other words, inheritance becomes dualized into a paradoxical process, which both perpetuates the old and appropriates the new. The same inconsistency is manifest in the process of variation, which capriciously produces convergent, no less than divergent, adaptations. In two fundamentally identical structures, like the wing of a bird and the foreleg of a cat, variation is said to have produced diverse adaptations. In two fundamentally diverse structures, like the head of an octopus and the head of a frog, variation is said to have produced an identical adaptation, namely, the vertebrate type of eye. It appears, therefore, that the essentially diversifying process of variation can become, on occasion, a simplifying process, which, instead of solving environmental problems in an original manner, prefers to employ uniform and standardized solutions, and to cling to its old stereotyped methods. Inheritance similifies and diversifies, variation converges and diverges. It is futile to attempt to reduce either of these protean processes to a condition that even approximates consistency. The evolutionist blows hot and cold with the same breath. Verily, his god is Proteus, or the double-headed Janus!

Summa summarum: The evolutionary argument from homology is defective in three important respects: (1) in its lack of experimental confirmation; (2) in its incomplete enumeration of the disjunctive possibilities; (3) in its inability to construct a scheme of transmutation that synthesizes inheritance and variation in a logically coherent, and factually substantiated formula. The first two defects are not necessarily fatal to the argument as such. Though they destroy its pretensions to conclusiveness, they do not preclude the fulfilment of the moderate claim made in its behalf by Prof. T. H. Morgan, who says: “In this sense (i.e., as previously stated) the argument from comparative anatomy, while not a demonstration, carries with it, I think, a high degree of probability.” (“A Critique of the Theory of Evolution,” p. 14.) The third defect is more serious. The apparently irreducible antagonism which the evolutionary assumption introduces between inheritance and variation has been sensed even by the adherents of transformism themselves, and they have searched in vain for a formula, which, without sacrificing the facts, would bring into concord the respective rôles of these discordant factors. “It follows,” says Osborn, “as an unprejudiced conclusion from our present evidence that upon Weismann’s principle we can explain inheritance but not evolution, while with Lamarck’s principle and Darwin’s selection principle we can explain evolution, but not, at present, inheritance. Disprove Lamarck’s principle and we must assume that there is some third factor in evolution of which we are ignorant.” (Popular Science Monthly, Jan., 1905.) The point is well taken, and unless, as Osborn suggests, there is a tertium quid by means of which the discord can be resolved into ultimate harmony, we see no way of liberating the theory of Transmutation from this embarrassing dilemma.

CHAPTER III FOSSIL PEDIGREES — § 1. The Argument in the Abstract — § 2. The Argument in the Concrete

The palæontological argument for evolution is based upon the observed gradual approximation in type of the earlier forms of life, as represented by the fossils still preserved in successive geological strata, to the later forms of life, as represented by the contemporary species constituting our present flora and fauna. Here the observed distribution in time supplements and confirms the argument drawn from mere structural affinity. Here we are no longer dealing with the spatial gradation of contemporary forms, arranged on a basis of greater or lesser similarity (the gradation whence the zoölogist derives his argument for evolution), but with a temporal gradation, which is simultaneously a morphological series and an historical record. The lower sedimentary rocks contain specimens of organic life very unlike modern species, but, the higher we ascend in the geological strata, the more closely do the fossil forms resemble our present organisms. In fact, the closeness of resemblance is directly proportional to the proximity in time, and this seems to create a presumption that the later forms of life are the modified descendants of the earlier forms. Considered in the abstract, at least, such an argument is obviously more formidable than the purely anatomical argument based on the degrees of structural affinity observable in contemporary forms. It ought, therefore, to be extremely persuasive, provided, of course, it proceeds in rigorous accord with indubitably established facts and rules out relentlessly the alloy of uncritical assumptions.

Here, likewise, we find the theory of transformism asserting its superiority over the theory of immutability, on the ground that evolutionism can furnish a natural explanation for the gradational distribution of fossil types in the geological strata, whereas the theory of permanence resorts, it is said, to a supernaturalism of reiterated “new creations” alternating with “catastrophic exterminations.” Now, if this claim is valid, and it can be shown conclusively that fixism is inevitably committed to a postulate of superfluously numerous “creations,” then the latter theory is shorn of all right to consideration by Occam’s Razor: Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine ratione. It is rather difficult to conceive of the Creator as continually blotting out, and rewriting, the history of creation, as ruthlessly exterminating the organisms of one age, only to repopulate the earth subsequently with species differing but little from their extinct predecessors—ad quid perditio haec? Such procedure hardly comports with the continuity, regularity and irrevisable perfection to be expected in the works of that Divine Wisdom, which “reacheth ... from end to end mightily and disposeth all things sweetly” (Wisdom, viii; 1), which “ordereth all things in measure, and number and weight.” (Wis. xi; 21.)

Following the lead of other evolutionists, Wasmann has striven to saddle fixism with the fatuity of periodic catastrophism and “creation on the installment plan.” But even Cuvier, who is credited with having originated the theory of catastrophism, did not go to the absurd extreme of hypothecating reiterated creations, but sought to explain the repopulation of the earth after each catastrophe by means of migrations from distant regions unaffected by the catastrophe. Historically, too, fixism has had its uniformitarian, as well as its catastrophic, versions. In fact, Huxley classifies both uniformitarianism and catastrophism as fixistic systems, when he says: “I find three more or less contradictory systems of geologic thought ... standing side by side in Britain. I shall call one of them Catastrophism, another Uniformitarianism, the third Evolutionism.” (“Lay Sermons,” p. 229.) Obviously, then, fixism is separable from the hypothesis of repeated catastrophes alternating with repeated “creations.” Stated in proper terms, it is at one with evolutionism in rejecting as undemonstrated and improbable the postulate of reiterated cataclysms. It freely acknowledges that, in the absence of positive evidence of their occurrence, the presumption is against extraordinary events, like wholesale catastrophes. It sanctions the uniformitarian tenet that ordinary cosmic processes are to be preferred to exceptional ones as a basis of geological explanation, and it repudiates as unscientific any recourse to the unusual or the miraculous in accounting for natural phenomena. Its sole point of disagreement with evolutionism is its refusal to admit organic changes of specific magnitude. It does, however, admit germinal changes of varietal magnitude. It also recognizes that the external characters of the phenotype are the joint product of germinal factors and environmental stimuli, and admits, in consequence, the possibility of purely somatic changes of considerable profundity being induced by widespread and persistent alterations in environmental conditions. Like Darwin, the uniformitarian fixist ascribes the origination of organic life to a single vivifying act on the part of the Creator, an act, however, that was formative rather than creative, because the primal forms of life, whether few or many, were all evolved through Divine influence from preëxistent inorganic matter. Unlike Darwin, he ascribes the continuation of organic life to generative processes that were univocal (generationes univocae), and not gradually-equivocal (generationes paulatim aequivocae). In the next chapter, we shall see that, in attributing the initial formation of species to a Divine act, neither Darwin nor the creationists exposed themselves to the charge of explaining the “natural” by means of the “miraculous.” And, as for the process by which living forms were continued upon earth, the univocal reproductive process upheld by fixism is more manifestly a natural process than the gradually-equivocal generation of variable inheritance hypothecated by the theory of transmutation. The sole matter of dispute between the two views is whether the life-cycles of organisms are circles or spirals.

But all this, it will be said, is purely negative. Merely to refrain from any recourse to the extraordinary or the supernatural is by no means sufficient. “Natural explanations” must be explanatory as well as natural. Unless there be a simplification, a reduction of plurality to unity, a resolution of many particular problems into a common general problem, we have no explanation worthy of the name. Granting, therefore, that uniformitarian fixism does not recur to the anomalous or the miraculous, it still lies open to the charge of failing in its function as an explanation, because it multiplies origins in both space and time. Transformism, on the contrary, is said to elucidate matters, inasmuch as it unifies origins spatially and temporally.

That transformism successfully plausibleizes a unification of origins in space, is true only in a limited and relative sense. The most that can be said for the assumption, that resemblances rest on the principle of common inheritance, is that it permits of a numerical reduction of origins, but this numerical reduction will, by an intrinsic necessity, always fall short of absolute unification. The monophyletic derivation of all organic forms from one primordial cell or protoblast is a fantastic dream, for which, from the very nature of things, natural science does not, and can not, furnish even the semblance of an objective basis. The ground is cut from under our feet, the moment we attempt to extend the principle of descent outside the limits of an organic phylum. The sole basis of inference is a group of uniformities, and, unless these uniformities predominate over the diversities, there can be no rational application of the principle of transformism. Hence, the hypothesis, that organisms are consanguineous notwithstanding their differences, loses all value as a solution at the point where resemblances are outweighed by diversities. The transmutation assumed to have taken place must be never so complete as to have obliterated all recognizable vestiges of the common ancestral type. “Whenever,” says Driesch, “the theory that, in spite of their diversities, the organisms are related by blood, is to be really useful for explanation, it must necessarily be assumed in every case that the steps of change, which have led the specific form A to become the specific form B, have been such as only to change in part that original form A. That is to say: the similarities between A and B must never be overshadowed by their diversities.” (“Science and Philosophy of the Organism,” v. I, p. 254.) When, therefore, the reverse is true and diversities are prevalent over uniformities, we are left without clue or compass in the midst of a labyrinth of innumerable possibilities. Such are the limits imposed by the very nature of the evidence itself, and the scientists, who transgress these limits, by attempting to correlate the primary phyla, are on a par with those unconvincible geniuses, who continually besiege the Patent Office with schemes ever new and weird for realizing the chimera of “perpetual motion.”

Thus scientific transformism is unable to simplify the problem beyond a certain irreducible plurality of forms, lesser only in degree than the plurality postulated by fixism. This being the case, the attempts of Wasmann and Dorlodot to prune the works of Creation with Occam’s Razor are not only presumptuous, but precarious as well. Qui nimis probat, nihil probat! If it be unworthy of God to multiply organic origins in space, then monophyletic descent is the only possible alternative, and polyphyletic transformism falls under the same condemnation as fixism. Yet the polyphyletic theory of descent is that to which both Wasmann and Dorlodot subscribe, as it is, likewise, the only kind of transformism which science can ever hope to plausibleize. Besides, too close a shave with Occam’s Razor would eliminate creation altogether, since all theologians cheerfully admit that it was the result of a free and unnecessary act on the part of God. When we apply our rationes convenientiae to the Divine operations, we must not make the mistake of applying them to the Divine action itself instead of the created effects of that action. We may be competent to discern disorder and irregularity in finite things, but we are wholly incompetent to prescribe rules for Divine conduct. To say that God is constrained by His infinite Wisdom to indirect, rather than direct, production, or that He must evolve a variety of forms out of living, rather than non-living, matter, is to be guilty of ridiculous anthropomorphism. There is no a priori reason, founded upon the Divine attributes, which restricts God’s creative action to the production of this, or that, number of primordial organisms, or which obliges him to endow primitive organisms with the power of transmutation.

But the fact that these rationes convenientiae fail to establish the a priori necessity of a unification of organic origins in space, does not imply that they are without value in suggesting the unification of organic origins in time. Order and regularity are not excluded by spatial multiplicity, but they may easily be excluded by the incongruities of an irregular succession of events. Indeterminism and chance are, indeed, inseparable from the course of Nature. There is in matter an unlimited potentiality, incommensurate with the limited efficacy of natural agencies. Hence it evades the absolute control of all finite factors and forces. But the anomalies and irregularities, which are contingent upon the limitation or frustration of second causes unable to impose an iron necessity upon evasive matter, are not referable to the First Cause, but rather to the finite efficacy of second causes. Such anomalies in natural processes, consequently, are not inconsistent with infinite wisdom and power on the part of the Creator. If, on the contrary, the anomaly occurs, not in the form of an accidental frustration of a natural agency, but in the form of an intrusive “new creation,” the irregularity in question would then be referable to the Creator Himself, and such derogations of order are inadmissible, except as manifestations of the supernatural. In fact, the abrupt and capricious insertion of a “new creation” into an order already constituted, say, for instance, the sudden introduction of Angiosperms in the Comanchian period, or of mammals in the Tertiary, would be out of harmony with both reason and revelation. Unless there is a positive reason for supposing the contrary, we must presume that, subsequent to the primordial constitution of things, the Divine influence upon the world has been concurrent rather than revolutionizing. Hence a theory of origins, compatible with the simultaneous “creation” of primal organisms, is decidedly preferable to a theory, which involves successive “creations” at random. That transformism dispenses with the need of assuming a succession of “creative” acts, is perfectly obvious, and, unless fixism can emulate its rival system in this respect, it cannot expect to receive serious attention.

But once fixism assumes the simultaneousness of organic origins, it encounters, in the absence of modern organic types from ancient geological strata, a new and formidable difficulty. Cuvier’s theory of numerous catastrophes followed by wholesale migrations of the forms, which had escaped extinction, is tantamount to an appeal to the extraordinary and the improbable for purposes of explanation, and this, as we have seen, is an expedient, which natural science is justified in refusing to sanction. Nor does the appeal to the incompleteness of the geological record offer a more satisfactory solution. It is tax enough, as we shall see, upon our credulity, when the transformist seeks to account thereby for the absence of intermediate types, but to account in this fashion for the absence of palæozoic Angiosperms and mammals is asking us to believe the all-but-incredible. It would not, therefore, be advisable for the fixist to appropriate the line of defense suggested for him by Bateson—“It has been asked how do you know for instance that there were no mammals in Palæozoic times? May there not have been mammals somewhere on the earth though no vestige of them has come down to us? We may feel confident there were no mammals then, but are we sure? In very ancient rocks most of the great orders of animals are represented. The absence of the others might by no great stress of imagination be ascribed to accidental circumstances.” But the sudden rise of the Angiosperms in the early part of the Mesozoic era is an instance of de novo origin that is not so easily explained away. Hence Bateson continues: “Happily, however, there is one example of which we can be sure. There were no Angiosperms—that is to say ‘higher plants’ with protected seeds—in the carboniferous epoch. Of that age we have abundant remains of a worldwide and rich flora. The Angiosperms are cosmopolitan. By their means of dispersal they must immediately have become so. Their remains are very readily preserved. If they had been in existence on the earth in carboniferous times they must have been present with the carboniferous plants, and must have been preserved with them. Hence we may be sure that they did appear on earth since those times. We are not certain, using certain in the strict sense, that Angiosperms are the lineal descendants of the carboniferous plants, but it is much easier to believe that they are than that they are not.” (Science, Jan. 20, 1922, p. 58.)

It would thus appear, that not all the organic types of either the plant, or the animal, kingdom are of equal antiquity, and that the belated rise of unprecedented forms has the status of an approximate certainty, wherewith every theory of origins must inevitably reckon. How, then, is the fixist to reconcile this successive appearance of organisms with the simultaneous “creation” advocated by St. Augustine and St. Thomas of Aquin? Unless there be some other gradual process besides transmutation, to bridge the interval between the creative fiat and the eventual appearance of modern types, there seems to be no escape from the dilemma.

This brings us to St. Augustine’s theory of the evolution of organic life from inorganic matter, which Dorlodot sophistically construes as supporting the theory of descent. According to St. Augustine, for whose view the Angelic Doctor expressed a deliberate preference, the creation of the corporeal world was the result of a single creative act, having an immediate effect in the case of minerals, and a remote or postponed effect in the case of plants and animals (cf. “De Genesi ad litteram,” lib. V, c. 5). Living beings, therefore, were created, not in actuality, but in germ. God imparted to the elements the power of producing the various plants and animals in their proper time and place. Hence living beings were created causally rather than formally, by the establishment of causal mechanisms or natural agencies especially ordained to bring about the initial formation of the ancestral forms of life. The Divine act initiating these “natural processes” (rationes seminales, rationes causales) in inorganic, and not in living, matter, was instantaneous, but the processes, which terminated in the formation of plants and animals, in their appointed time and place, were in themselves gradual and successive. Thus by an influx of Divine power the earth was made pregnant with the promise of every form of life—“Sicut matres gravidae sunt foetibus, sic ipse mundus est gravidus causis nascentium.” (Augustine, lib. III, “de Trinitate,” c. 9.)

By reason of this doctrine, the Louvain professor claims that St. Augustine was an evolutionist, and so, indeed, he was, if by evolution is meant a gradual production of organisms from inorganic matter. But if, on the contrary, by evolution is meant a progressive differentiation and multiplication of organic species by transmutation of preëxistent forms of life, or, in other words, if evolution is taken in its usual sense as synonym for transformism, then nothing could be more absurdly anachronistic than to ascribe the doctrine to St. Augustine. The subject of the gradual process postulated by the latter was, not living, but inorganic, matter, and the process was conceived as leading to the formation, and not the transformation, of species. The idea of variable inheritance did not occur to St. Augustine, and he conceived organisms, once they were in existence, as being propagated exclusively by univocal reproduction (generatio univoca). It is the fixist, therefore, rather than the transformist, who is entitled to exploit the Augustinian hypothesis. In fact, it is only the vicious ambiguity and unlimited elasticity of the term evolution, which avail to extenuate the astounding confusion of ideas and total lack of historic sense, that can bracket together under a common term the ideology of Darwin and the view of St. Augustine.

But it is our task to criticize the theory of transformism, and not to throw a life-line to fixism, by advocating gradual formation of species as the only feasible alternative to gradual transformation of species. Perhaps, this particular life-line will not be appreciated any way; for the fixist may, not without reason, prefer to rest his case on the contention that the intrinsic time-value of geological formations is far too problematic for certain conclusions of any sort. In maintaining this position, he will have the support of some present-day geologists, and can point, as we shall see, to facts that seem to bear out his contention. In fact, the cogency of the palæontological argument appears to be at its maximum in the abstract, and to evaporate the moment we carry it into the concrete. The lute seems perfect, until we begin to play thereon, and then we discover certain rifts that mar the effect. It is to these rifts that our attention must now be turned.

The first and most obvious flaw, in the evolutionary interpretation of fossil series, is the confounding of succession with filiation. Thinkers, from time immemorial, have commented on the deep chasm of distinction, which divides historical from causal sequence, and philosophers have never ceased to inveigh against the sophistical snare of: Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. That one form of life has been subsequent in time to another form of life is, in itself, no proof of descent. “Let us suppose,” says Bather, “all written records to be swept away, and an attempt made to reconstruct English history from coins. We could set out our monarchs in true order, and we might suspect that the throne was hereditary; but if on that assumption we were to make James I, the son of Elizabeth—well, but that’s just what palæontologists are constantly doing. The famous diagram of the Evolution of the Horse which Huxley used in his American lectures has had to be corrected in the light of the fuller evidence recently tabulated in a handsome volume by Prof. H. F. Osborn and his coadjutors. Palæotherium, which Huxley regarded as a direct ancestor of the horse, is now held to be only a collateral, as the last of the Tudors were collateral ancestors of the Stuarts. The later Ancitherium must be eliminated from the true line as a side branch—a Young Pretender. Sometimes an apparent succession is due to immigration of a distant relative from some other region—‘The glorious House of Hanover and Protestant Succession.’ It was, you will remember, by such migrations that Cuvier explained the renewal of life when a previous fauna had become extinct. He admitted succession but not descent.” (Science, Sept. 17, 1920, p. 261.)

But, if succession does not imply descent, descent, at least, implies succession, and the fact that succession is the necessary corollary of descent, may be used as a corrective for the erroneous allocations made by neontologists on the basis of purely morphological considerations. The priority of a type is the sine qua non condition of its being accepted as ancestral. It is always embarrassing when, as sometimes happens, a “descendant” turns out to be older than, or even coëval with, his “ancestor.” If, however, the historical position of a form can be made to coincide with its anatomical pretensions to ancestry, then the inference of descent attains to a degree of logical respectability that is impossible in the case of purely zoölogical evidence. Recent years have witnessed a more drastic application of the historical test to morphological speculations, and the result has been a wholesale revision of former notions concerning phylogeny. “I could easily,” says Bather, “occupy the rest of this hour by discussing the profound changes wrought by this conception on our classification. It is not that orders and classes hitherto unknown have been discovered, not that some erroneous allocations have been corrected, but the whole basis of our system is being shifted. So long as we were dealing with a horizontal section across the tree of life—that is to say, with an assemblage of approximately contemporaneous forms—or even with a number of such horizontal sections, so long were we confined to simple description. Any attempt to frame a causal connection was bound to be speculative.” (Ibidem, p. 258.) Whether zoölogists will take kindly to this “shifting of the whole basis” of classification, remains to be seen. Personally, we think they would be very ill-advised to exchange the solid observational basis of homology for the scanty facts and fanciful interpretations of palæontologists.

The second stumbling block in the path of Transformism is the occurrence of convergence. We have seen that, in the palæontological argument, descent is inferred conjointly from similarity and succession, and that, in the abstract, this argument is very persuasive. One of the concrete phenomena, however, that tend to make it inconsequential, is the undoubted occurrence of convergence. Prof. H. Woods of Cambridge, in the Introduction to the 5th edition of his “Palæontology” (1919), speaks of three kinds of convergence (cf., pp. 14, 15, 16), which, as a matter of convenience, we may term the parallelistic, the radical, and the adaptational, types of convergence. A brief description of each type will serve to elucidate its nature and its significance:

(1) Parallelistic convergence implies the appearance of parallel modifications in the homologous parts of organisms regarded as diverging from common stock in two distinct collateral lines, that were independent at the time of the appearance in both of the said parallel modifications. Speaking of the fossil cœlenterates known as Graptolites, Professor Woods says: “In some genera the hydrothecæ of different species show great variety of form, those of one species being often much more like those of a species belonging to another genus than to other species of the same genus.” (“Palæontology,” 5th ed., 1919, p. 69.) As another instance of this phenomenon, the case of the fossil ungulates of South America, spoken of as Litopterna, may be cited, and the case is peculiarly interesting because of its bearing on that pièce de résistance of palæontological evidence, the Pedigree of the Horse. “The second family of Litopterna,” says Wm. B. Scott, “the Proterotheriidæ, were remarkable for their many deceptive resemblances to horses. Even though those who contend that the Litopterna should be included in the Perissodactyla should prove to be in the right, there can be no doubt that the proterotheres were not closely related to the horses, but formed a most striking illustration of the independent acquisition of similar characters through parallel or convergent development. The family was not represented in the Pleistocene, having died out before that epoch, and the latest known members of it lived in the upper Pliocene.... Not that this remarkable character was due to grotesque proportions; on the contrary, they looked far more like the ordinary ungulates of the northern hemisphere than did any of their South American contemporaries; it is precisely this resemblance that is so notable.... The feet were three-toed, except in one genus (Thoatherium) in which they were single-toed, and nearly or quite the whole weight was carried upon the median digit, the laterals being mere dew-claws. The shape of the hoofs and the whole appearance of the foot was surprisingly like those of the three-toed horses, but there were certain structural differences of such great importance, in my judgment, as to forbid the reference of these animals, not merely to the horses, but even to the perissodactyls.” (“A History of Land Mammals in the Western Hemisphere,” p. 499.)

For this sort of parallelism, the Lamarckian and Darwinian types of evolution by addition can offer no rational explanation. It could, perhaps, be accounted for upon the Batesonian hypothesis of evolution by loss of inhibition, that is to say, the coincident appearance of convergent characters in collateral lines might be interpreted as being due to a parallel loss in both lines of the inhibitive genes, which had suppressed the convergent feature in the primitive or common stock. We say that the convergence might be so interpreted, because the interpretation in question would, at best, be merely optional and not at all necessary; for in the third, or adaptational, type of convergence, we shall see instances of parallel modifications occurring in completely independent races, whose morphology and history alike exclude all possibility of hereditary connection between them. Hence, even in the present case, nothing constrains us to accept the genetic interpretation.

(2) Radical convergence, which Woods styles heterogenetic homœomorphy, is described by him as follows: “Sometimes two groups of individuals resemble each other so closely that they might be regarded as belonging to the same genus or even to the same species (italics mine), but they have descended from different ancestors since they are found to differ in development (ontogeny) or in their palæontological history; this phenomenon, of forms belonging to different stocks approaching one another in character, is known as convergence or heterogenetic homœomorphy, and may occur at the same geological period or at widely separated intervals. Thus the form of oyster known as Gryphaea has originated independently from oysters of the ordinary type in the Lias, in the Oölites, and again in the Chalk; these forms found at different horizons closely resemble one another and have usually been regarded as belonging to one genus (Gryphaea), but they have no direct genetic connection with one another.” (“Palæontology,” 5th ed., 1919, p. 15.) Comment is almost superfluous. If even specific resemblance is no proof of common origin, then what right have we to interpret any resemblance whatever in this sense? With such an admission, the whole bottom drops out of the evolutionary argument. When the theory of descent is forced to account for heterogenetic resemblance at expense of all likelihood and consistency, when it cannot save itself except by blowing hot and cold with one breath, one is tempted to exclaim: “Oh, why bother with it!”

(3) Adaptational convergence is the occurrence of parallel modifications due to analogous specialization in unrelated forms, whose phylogeny has been obviously diverse. “Also, animals belonging to quite distinct groups,” says Woods, “may, when living under similar conditions, come to resemble one another owing to the development of adaptive modifications, though they do not really approach one another in essential characters; thus analogous or parallel modifications may occur in independent groups—such are the resemblances between flying reptiles (Ornithosaurs) and birds, and between sharks, icthyosaurs and dolphins.” (Op. cit., p. 16.) As this type of convergence has been discussed in a previous article, with reference to the mole and mole-cricket, it need not detain us further.

All these types of convergence, but especially the second type, are factual evidence of the compatibility of resemblance with independent origin, and the fact of their occurrence tends to undermine the certainty of the phylogenetic inferences based on fossil evidence; all the more so, that, thanks to its bad state of preservation, and the impossibility of dissection, even superficial resemblances may give rise to false interpretations. And, as for the cases of radical convergence, there is no denying that they strike at the very heart of the theory of descent.

The third difficulty for Transformism arises from the discontinuity of the geological record. It was one of the very first discrepancies to be discovered between evolutionary expectation and the actual results of research. The earliest explorations revealed a state of affairs, that subsequent investigations have failed to remedy: on the one hand, namely, a notable absence of intermediate species to bridge the gaps between the fossil genera, and on the other hand, the sudden and simultaneous appearance of numerous new and allied types unheralded by transitional forms. Since Darwin had stressed the gradualness of transmutation, the investigators expected to find the transitional means more numerous than the terminal extremes, and were surprised to find, in the real record of the past, the exact reverse of their anticipation. They found that the classes and families of animals and plants had always been as widely separated and as sharply differentiated as they are today, and that they had always formed distinct systems, unconnected by transitional links. The hypothetical “generalized types,” supposed to combine the features of two or three families, have never been found, and most probably never will be; for it is all but certain that they never existed. Occasionally, it is true, palæontologists have discovered isolated types, which they interpreted as annectant forms, but a single pier does not make a bridge, and only too often it chanced that the so-called annectant type, though satisfactory from the morphological standpoint, was more recent than the two groups, to which it was supposed to be ancestral. But it will make matters plainer, if we illustrate what is meant by the discontinuity or incompleteness of the fossil record, by reference to some concrete series, such as the so-called Pedigree of the Horse.

Whenever a series of fossils, arranged in the order of their historical sequence, exhibits a gradation of increasing resemblance to the latest form, with which the series terminates, such a series is called a palæontological pedigree, and is said to represent so many stages in the racial development or phylogeny of the respective modern type. The classical example of this sort of “pedigree” is that of the Horse. It is, perhaps, one of the most complete among fossil “genealogies,” and yet, as has been frequently pointed out, it is, as it stands, extremely incomplete. Modern representatives of the Equidae, namely, the horse, the ass and the zebra, belong to a common genus, and are separated from one another by differences which are merely specific, but the differences which separate the various forms, that compose the “pedigree of the Horse,” are generic. We have, to borrow Gerard’s simile, nothing more than the piers of the evolutionary bridge, without the arches, and we do not know whether there ever were any arches. There is, indeed, a sort of progression, e.g., from the four-toed to a one-toed type, so that the morphological gradation does, in some degree, coincide with temporal succession. But, on the other hand, the fossil forms, interpreted as stages in the phylogeny of the Horse, are separated from one another by gaps so enormous, that, in the absence of intermediate species to bridge the intervals, it is practically impossible, particularly in the light of our experimental knowledge of Genetics, to conceive of any transition between them. Nor is this all. The difficulty is increased tenfold, when we attempt to relate the Equidae to other mammalian groups. Fossil ungulates appear suddenly and contemporaneously in the Tertiary of North America, South America and Europe, without any transitional precursors, to connect them with the hypothetical proto-mammalian stock, and to substantiate their collaterality with other mammalian stocks.

To all such difficulties the evolutionist replies by alleging the incompleteness of the geological record, and modern handbooks on palæontology devote many pages to the task of explaining why incompleteness of the fossil record is just what we should expect, especially in the case of terrestrial animals. The reasons which they assign are convincing, but this particular mode of solving the difficulty is a rather precarious one. Evolutionists should not forget that, in sacrificing the substantial completeness of the record to account for the absence of intermediate species, they are simultaneously destroying its value as a proof of the relative position of organic types in time. Yet this, as we have seen, is precisely the feature of greatest strategic value in the palæontological “evidence” for evolution. We must have absolute certainty that the reputed “ancestor” was in existence prior to the appearance of the alleged “descendant,” or the peculiar force of the palæontological argument is lost. It would be preposterous for the progeny to be prior to, or even coëval with, the progenitor, and so we must be quite sure that what we call “posterity” is really posterior in time. Now the sole argument that palæontology can adduce for the posteriority of one organic type as compared with another is the negative evidence of its non-occurrence, or rather of its non-discovery, in an earlier geological formation. The lower strata do not, so far as is known, contain the type in question, and so it is concluded that this particular form had no earlier history. Such an inference, as is clear, is not only liable to be upset by later discoveries, but has the additional disadvantage of implicitly assuming the substantial completeness of the fossil record, whereas the absence of intermediate species is only explicable by means of the assumed incompleteness of the selfsame record. The evolutionist is thus placed in the dilemma of choosing between a substantially complete, and a substantially incomplete, record. Which of the alternatives, he elects, matters very little; but he must abide by the consequences of his decision, he cannot eat his cake and have it.

When the evolutionist appeals to the facts of palæontology, it goes without saying that he does so in the hope of showing that the differences, which divide modern species of plants and animals, diminish as we go backward in time, until the stage of identity is reached in the unity of a common ancestral type. Hence from the very nature of the argument, which he is engaged in constructing, he is compelled to resort to intermediate types as evidence of the continuity of allied species with the hypothetical ancestor, or common type, whence they are said to have diverged. Now, even supposing that his efforts in this direction were attended with a complete measure of success, evidence of this kind would not of itself, as we shall see, suffice to demonstrate the common origin of the extremes, between which a perfect series of intergradent types can be shown to mediate. Unquestionably, however, unless such a series of intergradent fossil species can be adduced as evidence of the assumed transition, the presumption is totally against the hypothesis of transformism.

Now, as a matter of fact, the geological record rarely offers any evidence of the existence in the past of intermediate species. For those, who have implicit confidence in the time-value of geological “formations,” there are indications of a general advance from lower to higher forms, but, even so, there is little to show that this seeming progress is to be interpreted as an increasing divergence from common ancestral types. With but few exceptions, the fossil record fails to show any trace of transitional links. Yet pedigrees made up of diverse genera are poor evidence for filiation or genetic continuity, so long as no intermediate species can be found to bridge the chasm of generic difference. By intermediate species, we do not mean the fabulous “generalized type.” Annectants of this kind are mere abstractions, which have never existed, and never could have existed. We refer rather to actual fossil types separated from one another by differences not greater than specific; for “not until we have linked species into lineages,” can fossil pedigrees lay claim to serious attention.

But let us suppose the case for evolution to be ideally favorable, and assume that in every instance we possessed a perfect gradation of forms between two extremes, such, for example, as occurs in the Ammonite series, even then we would be far from having a true demonstration of the point at issue. Bateson has called our attention to the danger of confounding sterile and instable hybrids with intergradent species. “Examine,” he says, “any two thoroughly distinct species which meet each other in their distribution, as for instance, Lychnis diurna and vespertina do. In areas of overlap are many intermediate forms. These used to be taken to be transitional steps, and the specific distinctness of vespertina and diurna was on that account questioned. Once it is known that these supposed intergrades are merely mongrels between the two species the transition from one to the other is practically beyond our powers of imagination to conceive. If both these can survive, why has their common parent perished? Why, when they cross, do they not reconstruct it instead of producing partially sterile hybrids? I take this example to show how entirely the facts were formerly misrepresented.” (Heredity, Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1915, p. 369.)

Similarly, T. H. Morgan has shown, with reference to mutants, the fallacy of inferring common descent from the phenomenon of intergradence, and what holds true for a series of intergradent mutants would presumably also hold true of a series of intergradent species, could such a series be found and critically distinguished from hybrid and mutational intermediates. In short, the Darwinian deduction of common origin from the existence of intergradence must now be regarded as a thoroughly discredited argument. “Because we can often arrange the series of structures in a line extending from the very simple to the more complex, we are apt to become unduly impressed by this fact and conclude that if we found the complete series we should find all the intermediate steps and that they have arisen in the order of their complexity. This conclusion is not necessarily correct.” (“A Critique of the Theory of Evolution,” p. 9.) Having cited such a series of gradational mutations ranging between the long-winged, and completely wingless condition, in the case of the Vinegar Fly (Drosophila melanogaster), as well as two similar graded series based on pigmentation and eye color, he concludes: “These types, with the fluctuations that occur within each type, furnish a complete series of gradations; yet historically they have arisen independently of each other. Many changes in eye color have appeared. As many as thirty or more races differing in eye color are now maintained in our cultures. Some of them are so similar that they can scarcely be separated from each other. It is easily possible beginning with the darkest eye color, sepia, which is a deep brown, to pick out a perfectly graded series ending with pure white eyes. But such a serial arrangement would give a totally false idea of the way the different types have arisen; and any conclusion based on the existence of such a series might very well be entirely erroneous, for the fact that such a series exists bears no relation to the order in which its members have appeared.” (Op. cit., pp. 12, 13.) Such facts must give us pause in attaching undue importance to phenomena like the occurrence of a gradual complication of sutures in the Chalk Ammonites, particularly as parallel series of perfectly similar sutures occurs “by convergence” in the fossil Ceratites, which have no genetic connection with the Ammonites. (Cf. Woods’ “Palæontology,” 5th ed., p. 16.)

But, if even mutational and specific intergradents are not sufficient evidence of common ancestry, what shall we say of a discontinuous series, whose links are separate genera, orders, or even classes, instead of species. Even the most enthusiastic transformist is forced to admit the justice of our insistence that the gaps which separate the members of a series must be reduced from differences of the generic, to differences of the specific, order, before that series can command any respect as hypothetical “genealogy.” “You will have observed,” says F. A. Bather, “that the precise methods of the modern palæontologist, on which this proof is based, are very different from the slap-dash conclusions of forty years ago. The discovery of Archæopteryx, for instance, was thought to prove the evolution of birds from reptiles. No doubt it rendered that conclusion extremely probable, especially if the major promise—that evolution was the method—were assumed. But the fact of evolution is precisely what men were then trying to prove. These jumpings from class to class or from era to era, by aid of a few isolated stepping-stones, were what Bacon calls anticipations “hasty and premature but very effective, because as they are collected from a few instances, and mostly from those which are of familiar occurrence, they immediately dazzle the intellect and fill the imagination.” (Nov. Org., I, 28.) No secure step was taken until the modern palæontologist began to affiliate mutation with mutation and species with species, working his way back, literally inch by inch, through a single small group of strata. Only thus could he base on the laboriously collected facts a single true interpretation; and to those who preferred the broad path of generality his interpretations seemed, as Bacon says they always “must seem, harsh and discordant—almost like mysteries of faith.” ... Thus by degrees we reject the old slippery stepping-stones that so often toppled us into the stream, and, foot by foot, we build a secure bridge over the waters of ignorance.” (Science, Sept. 17, 1920, pp. 263, 264.)

We cannot share Bather’s confidence in the security of a bridge composed of even linked species. Let such a series be never so perfect, let the gradation be never so minute, as it might conceivably be made, when not merely distinct species, but also hybrids, mutants and fluctuants are available as stopgaps, the bare fact of such intergradation tells nothing whatever concerning the problem of genetical origin and specific relationship. The species-by-species method does, however, represent the very minimum of requirement imposed upon the palæontologist, who professes to construct a fossil pedigree. But, when all is said and done, such a method, even at its best, falls considerably short of the mark. However perfectly intergradent a series of fossils may be, the fact remains that these petrified remnants of former life cannot be subjected to breeding tests, and that, in the consequent absence of genetical experimentation, we have no means of determining the real bearing of these facts upon the problem of interspecific relationship. Only the somatic characters of extinct floras and faunas have been conserved in the rock record of the past, and even these are often rendered dubious, as we shall see presently, by their imperfect state of preservation. Now, it is solely in conjunction with breeding experiments, that somatic characters can give us any insight into the nature of the germinal constitution of an organism, which, after all, is the cardinal consideration upon which the whole question of interspecific relationship hinges. All inferences, therefore, regarding the descent of fossil forms are irremediably speculative and conjectural. When we are dealing with living forms, we can always check up the inferences based on somatic characteristics by means of genetical experiments, and in so doing we have found that it is as unsafe to judge of an organism from the exclusive standpoint of its external characters as it is to judge of a book by the cover; for, apart from the check of breeding tests, it is impossible to say just which somatic characters are genetically significant, and which are not. Forms externally alike may be so unlike in germinal constitution as to be sexually incompatible; forms externally unlike may be readily crossed without any discernible diminution of fertility. “Who could have foreseen,” exclaims Bateson, “that the apple and the pear—so like each other that their botanical differences are evasive—could not be crossed together, though species of Antirrhinum (Snapdragon) so totally unlike each other as majus and molle can be hybridized, as Baur has shown, without a sign of impaired fertility?” (Heredity, Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1915, p. 370.) We cannot distinguish between alleged specific, and merely mutational (varietal), change, nor between hybridizations and factorial, chromosomal, or pseudo-, mutations, solely on the basis of such external characters as are preserved for us in fossils. It is impossible, therefore, to demonstrate trans-specific variation by any evidence that Palæontology can supply. The palæontologist (pace Osborn) is utterly incompetent to pass judgment on the problem of interspecific relationship. As Bateson remarks: “In discussing the physiological problem of interspecific relationship evidence of a more stringent character is now required; and a naturalist acquainted with genetical discoveries would be as reluctant to draw conclusions as to the specific relationship of a series of fossils as a chemist would be to pronounce on the nature of a series of unknown compounds from an inspection of them in a row of bottles.” (Science, April 17, 1922, p. 373.) “When the modern student of variation and heredity,” says T. H. Morgan, “looks over the different ‘continuous’ series, from which certain ‘laws’ and ‘principles’ have been deduced, he is struck by two facts: that the gaps, in some cases, are enormous as compared with the single changes with which he is familiar, and (what is more important) that they involve numerous parts in many ways. The geneticist says to the palæontologist, since you do not know, and from the nature of your case can never know, whether your differences are due to one change or to a thousand, you cannot with certainty tell us anything about the hereditary units which have made the process of evolution possible.” (Op. cit., pp. 26, 27.) And without accurate knowledge on this subject, we may add, there is no possibility of demonstrating specific change or genetic relationship in the case of any given fossil.

In our discussion of the third defect in the fossil “evidence,” allusion was made to a fourth, namely, its imperfect state of preservation. The stone record of bygone days has been so defaced by the metamorphism of rocks, by the solvent action of percolating waters, by erosion, weathering and other factors of destruction, that, like a faded manuscript, it becomes, even apart from its actual lacunae, exceedingly difficult to decipher. So unsatisfactory, indeed, is the condition of the partially obliterated facts that human curiosity, piqued at their baffling ambiguity, calls upon human imagination to supply what observation itself fails to reveal. Nor does the invitation remain unheeded. Romance hastens to the rescue of uncertain Science, with an impressive display of “reconstructed fossils,” and the hesitation of critical caution is superseded by the dogmatism of arbitrary assumption. Scattered fragments of fossilized bones are integrated into skeletons and clothed by the magic of creative fancy with an appropriate musculature and flesh, reënacting for us the marvelous vision of Ezekiel: “And the bones came together, each one to its joint. And I beheld and, lo, there were sinews upon them, and the flesh came upon them: and the skin was stretched over them.” (Chap. XXXVII, 7, 8.) “It is also true,” says Osborn (who, like Haeckel, evinces a veritable mania for “retouching” incomplete facts), “that we know the mode of origin of the human species; our knowledge of human evolution has reached a point not only where a number of links are thoroughly known but the characters of the missing links can be very clearly predicated.” (Science, Feb. 24, 1922.) We will not dispute his contention; for it is perfectly true, that, in each and every case, all the missing details can be so exactly predicated that the resulting description might well put to shame the account of a contemporary eyewitness. The only difficulty is that such predication is the fruit of pure imagination. Scientific reconstructions, whether in the literary, plastic, or pictorial, form, are no more scientific than historical novels are historical. Both are the outcome of a psychological weakness in the human makeup, namely, its craving for a “finished picture”—a craving, however, that is never gratified save at the expense of the fragmentary basis of objective fact.[7]

In calling into question, however, the scientific value of the so-called “scientific reconstruction,” so far as its pretensions to precision and finality are concerned, it is not our intention to discredit those tentative restorations based upon Cuvier’s Law of Correlation, provided they profess to be no more than provisional approximations. Many of the structural features of organisms are physiologically interdependent, and there is frequently a close correlation among organs and organ-systems, between which no causal connection or direct physiological dependence is demonstrable. In virtue of this principle, one structural feature may connote another, in which case it would be legitimate to supply by inference any missing structure implied in the actual existence of its respective correlative. But if any one imagines that the law of correlation enables a scientist to restore the lost integrity of fossil types with any considerable degree of accuracy and finality, he greatly overestimates the scope of the principle in question. At best it is nothing more than an empirical generalization, which must not be pressed to an extent unwarranted by the inductive process, that first established it. “Certain relations of structure,” says Bather, “as of cloven hoofs and horns with a ruminant stomach, were observed, but as Cuvier himself insisted, the laws based on such facts were purely empirical.” (Science, Sept. 17, 1920, p. 258.) The palæontologist, then, is justified in making use of correlation for the purpose of reconstructing a whole animal out of a few fragmentary remains, but to look for anything like photographic precision in such “restorations” of extinct forms is to manifest a more or less complete ignorance of the nature and scope of the empirical laws, upon which they are based.

The imprudence of taking these “reconstructions” of extinct forms too seriously, however, is inculcated not merely by theoretical considerations, but by experience as well. Even in the case of the mammoth, a comparatively recent form, whose skeletal remains had been preserved more completely and perfectly than those of other fossil types, the discovery of a complete carcass buried in the ice of the Siberian “taiga” on the Beresovka river showed the existing restorations to be false in important respects. All, without exception, stood in need of revision, proving, once and for all, the inadequacy of fossil remains as a basis for exact reconstruction. E. Pfizenmayer, a member of the investigating expedition, comments on the fact as follows: “In the light of our present knowledge of the mammoth, and especially of its exterior, the various existing attempts at a restoration need important corrections. Apart from the many fanciful sketches intended to portray the exterior of the animal, all the more carefully made restorations show the faults of the skeleton, hitherto regarded as typical, on which they are based, especially the powerful semicircular and upward-curved tusks, the long tail, etc.

“As these false conceptions of the exterior of the mammoth, both written and in the form of pictures, are contained in all zoölogical and palæontological textbooks, and even in scientific monographs, it seems necessary to construct a more nearly correct picture, based on our present knowledge. I have ventured on this task, because as a member of the latest expedition for mammoth remains, I was permitted not only to become acquainted with this newest find while still in its place of deposit and to take part in exhuming it, but also to visit the zoölogical museum of St. Petersburg, which is so rich in mammoth remains, for the purpose of studying the animal more in detail.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1906, pp. 321, 322.) The example is but one of many, which serve to emphasize not merely the inadequacy of the generality of palæontological restorations, but also the extreme difficulty which the palæontologist experiences in interpreting aright the partially effaced record of a vanished past.

The fifth and most critical flaw in the fossil “evidence” for evolution is to be found in the anomalies of the actual distribution of fossils in time. It is the boast of evolutionary Palæontology that it is able to enhance the cogency of the argument from mere structural resemblance by showing, that, of two structurally allied forms, one is more ancient than the other, and may, therefore, be presumed to be ancestral to the later form. Antecedence in time is the sine qua non qualification of a credible ancestor, and, unless the relative priority of certain organic types, as compared with others, can be established with absolute certainty, the whole palæontological argument collapses, and the boast of evolutionary geology becomes an empty vaunt.

Whenever the appearance of a so-called annectant type is antedated by that of the two forms, which it is supposed to connect, this fact is, naturally, a deathblow to its claim of being the “common ancestor,” even though, from a purely morphological standpoint, it should possess all the requisites of an ancestral type. Commenting upon the statement that a certain genus “is a truly annectant form uniting the Melocrinidae and the Platycrinidae,” Bather takes exception as follows: “The genus in question appeared, so far as we know, rather late in the Lower Carboniferous, whereas both Platycrinidae and Melocrinidae were already established in Middle Silurian time. How is it possible that the far later form should unite these two ancient families? Even a mésalliance is inconceivable.” (Science, Sept. 17, 1920, p. 260.)

Certainty, therefore, with respect to the comparative antiquity of the fossiliferous strata is the indispensable presupposition of any palæontological argument attempting to show that there is a gradual approximation of ancient, to modern, types. Yet, of all scientific methods of reckoning, none is less calculated to inspire confidence, none less safeguarded from the abuses of subjectivism and arbitrary interpretation, than that by which the relative age of the sedimentary rocks is determined!

In order to date the strata of any given series with reference to one another, the palæontologist starts with the principle that, in an undisturbed area, the deeper sediments have been deposited at an earlier period than the overlying strata. Such a criterion, however, is obviously restricted in its application to local areas, and is available only at regions of outcrop, where a vertical section of the strata is visibly exposed. To trace the physical continuity, however, of the strata (if such continuity there be) from one continent to another, or even across a single continent, is evidently out of the question. Hence, to correlate the sedimentary rocks of a given region with those of another region far distant from the former, some criterion other than stratigraphy is required. To supply this want, recourse has been had to index fossils, which have now come into general use as age-markers and means of stratigraphical correlation, where the criterion of superposition is either absent or inapplicable. Certain fossil types are assumed to be infallibly indicative of certain stratigraphical horizons. In fact, when it comes to a decision as to the priority or posteriority of a given geological formation, index fossils constitute the court of last appeal, and even the evidences of actual stratigraphical sequence and of physical texture itself are always discounted and explained away, whenever they chance to conflict with the presumption that certain fossil forms are typical of certain geological periods. If, for example, the superposed rock contains fossils alleged to be typical of an “earlier” stratigraphic horizon than that to which the fossils of the subjacent rock belong, the former is pronounced to be “older,” despite the fact that the actual stratigraphic order conveys the opposite impression. “We still regard fossils,” says J. W. Judd, “as the ‘medals of creation,’ and certain types of life we take to be as truly characteristic of definite periods as the coins which bear the image and superscription of a Roman emperor or of a Saxon king.” (Cf. Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 356.) Thus it comes to pass, in the last analysis, that fossils, on the one hand, are dated according to the consecutive strata, in which they occur, and strata, on the other hand, are dated according to the fossils which they contain.

Such procedure, if not actually tantamount to a vicious circle, is, to say the least, in imminent danger of becoming so. For, even assuming the so-called empirical generalization, that makes certain fossils typical of certain definitely-aged geological “formations,” to be based upon induction sufficiently complete and analytic to insure certainty, at least, in the majority of instances, and taking it for granted that we are dealing with a case, where the actual evidence of stratigraphy is not in open conflict with that of the index fossils, who does not see that such a system of chronology lends itself only too readily to manipulation of the most arbitrary kind, whenever the pet preconceptions of the evolutionary chronologist are at stake? How, then, can we be sure, in a given case, that a verdict based exclusively on the “evidence” of index fossils will be reliably objective? It is to be expected that the evolutionist will refrain from the temptation to give himself the benefit of every doubt? Will there not be an almost irresistible tendency on the part of the convinced transformist to revise the age of any deposit, which happens to contain fossils that, according to his theory, ought not to occur at the time hitherto assigned?

The citation of a concrete example will serve to make our meaning clear. A series of fresh-water strata occur in India known as the Siwalik beds. The formation in question was originally classed as Miocene. Later on, however, as a result, presumably, of the embarrassing discovery of the genus Equus among the fossils of the Upper Siwalik beds, Wm. Blanford saw fit to mend matters by distinguishing the Upper, from the Lower, beds and assigning the former (which contain fossil horses) to the Pliocene period. The title Miocene being restricted by this ingenious step to beds destitute of equine remains, namely the Nahun, or Lower Siwalik, deposits, all danger of the horse proving to be older than his ancestors was happily averted. A mere shifting of the conventional labels, apparently, was amply sufficient to render groundless the fear, to which Professor A. Sedgwick had given expression in the following terms: “The genus Equus appears in the upper Siwalik beds, which have been ascribed to the Miocene age.... If Equus really existed in the Upper Miocene, it was antecedent to some of its supposed ancestors.” (“Students’ Textbook of Zoölogy,” p. 599.) Evidently, the Horse must reconcile himself perforce to the pedigree assigned to him by the American Museum of Natural History; for he is to be given but scant opportunity of escaping it. This classic genealogy has already entailed far too great an expenditure of time, money and erudition to permit of any reconsideration; and should it chance, in the ironic perversity of things, that the Horse has been so inconsiderate as to leave indubitable traces of himself in any formation earlier than the Pliocene, it goes without saying that the formation in question will at once be dated ahead, in order to secure for the “ancestors” that priority which is their due. An elastic criterion like the index fossil is admirably adapted for readjustments of this sort, and the evolutionist who uses it need never fear defeat. The game he plays can never be a losing one, because he gives no other terms than: Heads I win, tails you lose.

In setting forth the foregoing difficulties, we have purposely refrained from challenging the cardinal dogma of orthodox palæontology concerning the unimpeachable time-value of index fossils as age-markers. The force of these considerations, therefore, must be acknowledged even by the most fanatical adherents of the aforesaid dogma. Our forbearance in this instance, however, must not be construed as a confession that the dogma in question is really unassailable. On the contrary, not only is it not invulnerable, but there are many and weighty reasons for rejecting it lock, stock, and barrel.

The palæontological dogma, to which we refer, is reducible to the following tenets: (1) The earth is swathed with fossiliferous strata, in much the same fashion that an onion is covered with a succession of coats, and these strata are universal over the whole globe, occurring always in the same invariable order and characterized not by any peculiar uniformity of external appearance, physical texture, or mineral composition, but solely by peculiar groups of fossil types, which enable us to distinguish between strata of different ages and to correlate the strata of one continent with their counterparts in another continent—“Even the minuter divisions,” says Scott, “the substages and zones of the European Jura, are applicable to the classification of the South American beds.” (“Introduction to Geology,” p. 681.) (2) In determining the relative age of a given geological formation, its characteristic fossils form the exclusive basis of decision, and all other considerations, whether lithological or stratigraphic, are subordinated to this—“The character of the rocks,” says H. S. Williams, “their composition or their mineral contents have nothing to do with settling the question as to the particular system to which the new rocks belong. The fossils alone are the means of correlation.” (“Geological Biology,” pp. 37, 38.)

To those habituated to the common notion that stratigraphical sequence is the foremost consideration in deciding the comparative age of rocks, the following statement of Sir Archibald Geikie will come as a distinct shock: “We may even demonstrate,” he avers, “that in some mountainous ground the strata have been turned completely upside down, if we can show that the fossils in what are now the uppermost layers ought properly to lie underneath those in the beds below them.” (“Textbook,” ed. of 1903, p. 837.) In fact, the palæontologist, H. A. Nicholson, lays it down as a general principle that, wherever the physical evidence (founded on stratigraphy and lithology) is at variance with the biological evidence (founded on the presence of typical fossil organisms), the latter must prevail and the former must be ignored: “It may even be said,” he tells us, “that in any case where there should appear to be a clear and decisive discordance between the physical and the palæontological evidence as to the age of a given series of beds, it is the former that is to be distrusted rather than the latter.” (“Ancient Life History of the Earth,” p. 40.)

George McCready Price, Professor of Geology at a denominational college in Kansas, devotes more than fifty pages of his recent work, “The New Geology” (1923), to an intensely destructive criticism of this dogma of the supremacy of fossil evidence as a means of determining the relative age of strata. To cite Price as an “authority” would, of course, be futile. All orthodox geologists have long since anathematized him, and outlawed him from respectable geological society. Charles Schuchert of Yale refers to him as “a fundamentalist harboring a geological nightmare.” (Science, May 30, 1924, p. 487.) Arthur M. Miller of Kentucky University speaks of him as “the man who, while a member of no scientific body and absolutely unknown in scientific circles, has ... had the effrontery to style himself a ‘geologist.’” (Science, June 30, 1922, pp. 702, 703.) Miller, however, is just enough to admit that he is well-informed on his subject, and that he possesses the gift of persuasive presentation. “He shows,” says Miller, “a wide familiarity with geological literature, quoting largely from the most eminent authorities in this country and in Europe. Any one reading these writings of Price, which possess a certain charm of literary style, and indicate on the part of the author a gift of popular presentation which makes one regret that it had not been devoted to a more laudable purpose, must constantly marvel at the character of mind of the man who can so go into the literature of the subject and still continue to hold such preposterous opinions.” (Loc. cit., p. 702.)

In the present instance, however, our interest centers, not on the unimportant question of his official status in geological circles, but exclusively on the objective validity of his argument against the chronometric value of the index fossil. All citations, therefore, from his work will be supported, in the sequel, by collateral testimony from other authors of recognized standing. It is possible, of course, to inject irrelevant issues. Price, for example, follows Sir Henry Howorth in his endeavor to substitute an aqueous catastrophe for the glaciation of the Quaternary Ice Age, and he adduces many interesting facts to justify his preference for a deluge. But this is neither here nor there; for we are not concerned with the merits of his “new catastrophism.” It is his opportune revival in modern form of the forgotten, but extremely effective, objection raised by Huxley and Spencer against the alleged universality of synchronously deposited fossiliferous sediments, that constitutes our sole preoccupation here. It is Price’s merit to have shown that, in the light of recently discovered facts, such as “deceptive conformities” and “overthrusts,” this objection is far graver than it was when first formulated by the authors in question.

Mere snobbery and abuse is not a sufficient answer to a difficulty of this nature, and we regret that men, like Schuchert, have replied with more anger than logic. The orthodox geologist seems unnecessarily petulant, whenever he is called upon to verify or substantiate the foundational principles of lithic chronology. One frequently hears him make the excuse that “geology has its own peculiar method of proof.” To claim exemption, however, from the universal criterions of criticism and logic is a subterfuge wholly unworthy of a genuine science, and, if Price insists on discussing a subject, which the orthodox geologist prefers to suppress, it is the latter, and not the former, who is really reactionary.

Price begins by stating the issue in the form of a twofold question: (1) How can we be sure, with respect to a given fauna (or flora), say the Cambrian, that at one time it monopolized our globe to the complete exclusion of all other typical faunas (or floras), say the Devonian, or the Tertiary, of which it is assumed that they could not, by any stretch of imagination, have been contemporaneous, on either land or sea, with the aforesaid “older” fauna (or flora)? (2) Do the formations (rocks containing fossils) universally occur in such a rigidly invariable order of sequence with respect to one another, as to warrant our being sure of the starting-point in the time-scale, or to justify us in projecting any given local order of succession into distant localities, for purposes of chronological correlation?

His response to the first of these questions constitutes what may be called an aprioristic refutation of the orthodox view, by placing the evolutionary palæontologist in the trilemma: (a) of making the awkward confession that, except within limited local areas, he has no means whatever of distinguishing between a geographical distribution of coëval fossil forms among various habitats and a chronological distribution of fossils among sediments deposited at different times; (b) or of denying the possibility of geographical distribution in the past, by claiming dogmatically that the world during Cambrian times, for example, was totally unlike the modern world, of which alone we have experimental knowledge, inasmuch as it was then destitute of zoölogical provinces, districts, zones, and other habitats peculiar to various types of fauna, so that the whole world formed but one grand habitat, extending over land and sea, for a limited group of organisms made up exclusively of the lower types of life; (c) or of reviving the discredited onion-coat theory of Abraham Werner under a revised biological form, which asserts that the whole globe is enveloped with fossiliferous rather than mineral strata, whose order of succession being everywhere the same enables us to discriminate with precision and certainty between cases of distribution in time and cases of distribution in space.

In his response to the second question, Professor Price adduces numerous factual arguments, which show that the invariable order of sequence postulated by the theory of the time-value of index fossils, not only finds no confirmation in the actual or concrete sequences of fossiliferous rocks, but is often directly contradicted thereby. “Older” rocks may occur above “younger” rocks, the “youngest” may occur in immediate succession to the “oldest,” Tertiary rocks may be crystalline, consolidated, and “old in appearance,” while Cambrian and even pre-Cambrian rocks sometimes occur in a soft, incoherent condition, that gives them the physical appearance of being as young as Pleistocene formations. These exceptions and objections to the “invariable order” of the fossiliferous strata accumulate from day to day, and it is only by means of Procrustean tactics of the most drastic sort that the facts can be brought into any semblance of harmony with the current dogmas, which base geology upon evolution rather than evolution upon geology.

Price, then, proposes for serious consideration the possibility that Cretaceous dinosaurs and even Tertiary mammals may have been living on the land at the same time that the Cambrian graptolites and trilobites were living in the seas. “Who,” he exclaims, “will have the hardihood, the real dogmatism to affirm in a serious way that Cambrian animals and seaweeds were for a long time the only forms of life existing anywhere on earth?” Should we, nevertheless, make bold enough to aver that for countless centuries a mere few of the lower forms of life monopolized our globe, as one universal habitat unpartitioned into particular biological provinces or zones, we are thereupon confronted with two equally unwelcome alternatives. We must either fly in the face of experience and legitimate induction by denying the existence in the past of anything analogous to our present-day geographical distribution of plants and animals into various biological provinces, or be prepared to show by what infallible criterion we are enabled to distinguish between synchronously deposited formations indicative of a geographical distribution according to regional diversity, and consecutively deposited formations indicative of comparative antiquity.

The former alternative does not merit any consideration whatever. The latter, as we shall presently see, involves us in an assumption, for which no defense either aprioristic or factual is available. We can, indeed, distinguish between spatial, and temporal, distribution within the narrow limits of a single locality by using the criterion of superposition; for in regions of outcrop, where one sedimentary rock overlies another, the obvious presumption is that the upper rock was deposited at a later date than the lower rock. But the criterion of superposition is not available for the correlation of strata in localities so distant from each other that no physical evidence of stratigraphic continuity is discernible. Moreover the induction, which projects any local order of stratigraphical sequence into far distant localities on the sole basis of fossil taxonomy, is logically unsound and leads to conclusions at variance with the actual facts. Hence the alleged time-value of index fossils becomes essentially problematic, and affords no basis whatever for scientific certainty.

As previously stated, the sequence of strata is visible only in regions of outcrop, and nowhere are we able to see more than mere parts of two or, at most, three systems associated together in a single locality. Moreover, each set of beds is of limited areal extent, and the limits are frequently visible to the eye of the observer. In any case, their visible extent is necessarily limited. It is impossible, therefore, to correlate the strata of one continent with those of another continent by tracing stratigraphic continuity. Hence, in comparing particular horizons of various ages and in distinguishing them from other horizons over large areas, we are obliged to substitute induction for direct observation. Scientific induction, however, is only valid when it rests upon some universal uniformity or invariable sequence of nature. Hence, to be specific, the assumption that the time-scale based on the European classification of fossiliferous strata is applicable to the entire globe as a whole, is based on the further assumption that we are sure of the universality of fossiliferous stratification over the face of the earth, and that, as a matter of fact, fossils are always and everywhere found in the same order of invariable sequence.

But this is tantamount to reviving, under what Spencer calls “a transcendental form,” the exploded “onion-coat” hypothesis of Werner (1749-1817). Werner conceived the terrestrial globe as encircled with successive mineral envelopes, basing his scheme of universal stratification upon that order of sequence among rocks, which he had observed within the narrow confines of his native district in Germany. His hypothesis, after leading many scientists astray, was ultimately discredited and laughed out of existence. For it finally became evident to all observers that Werner’s scheme did not fit the facts, and men were able to witness with their own eyes the simultaneous deposition, in separate localities, of sediments which differed radically in their mineral contents and texture. Thus it came to pass that this classification of strata according to their mineral nature and physical appearance lost all value as an absolute time-scale, while the theory itself was relegated to the status of a curious and amusing episode in the history of scientific fiascos.

Thanks, however, to Wm. Smith and to Cuvier, the discarded onion-coat hypothesis did not perish utterly, but was rehabilitated and bequeathed to us in a new and more subtle form. Werner’s fundamental idea of the universality of a given kind of deposit was retained, but his mineral strata were replaced by fossiliferous strata, the lithological onion-coats of Werner being superseded by the biological onion-coats of our modern theory. The geologist of today discounts physical appearance, and classifies strata according to their fossil, rather than their mineral, contents, but he stands committed to the same old postulate of universal deposits. He has no hesitation in synchronizing such widely-scattered formations as the Devonian deposits of New York State, England, Germany, and South America. He pieces them all together as parts of a single system of rocks. He has no misgiving as to the universal applicability of the European scheme of stratigraphic classification, but assures us, in the words of the geologist, Wm. B. Scott, that: “Even the minuter divisions, the subdivisions and zones of the European Jura, are applicable to the classification of the South American beds.” (“Introduction to Geology,” p. 681f.) The limestone and sandstone strata of Werner are now things of the past, but, in their stead, we have, to quote the criticism of Herbert Spencer, “groups of formations which everywhere succeed each other in a given order, and are severally everywhere of the same age. Though it may not be asserted that these successive systems are universal, yet it seems to be tacitly assumed that they are so.... Though probably no competent geologist would contend that the European classification of strata is applicable to the globe as a whole, yet most, if not all geologists, write as though it were so.... Must we not say that though the onion-coat hypothesis is dead, its spirit is traceable, under a transcendental form, even in the conclusions of its antagonists.” (“Illustrations of Universal Progress,” pp. 329-380, ed. of 1890.)

But overlooking, for the moment, the mechanical absurdity involved in the notion of a regular succession of universal layers of sediment, and conceding, for the sake of argument, that the substitution of fossiliferous, for lithological, strata may conceivably have remedied the defects of Werner’s geological time-scale, let us confine ourselves to the one question, which, after all, is of prime importance, whether, namely, without the aid of Procrustean tactics, the actual facts of geology can be brought into alignment with the doctrine of an invariable order of succession among fossil types, and its sequel, the intrinsic time-value of index fossils. The question, in other words, is whether or not a reliable time-scale can be based on the facts of fossiliferous stratification as they are observed to exist in the concrete. Price’s answer is negative, and he formulates several empirical laws to express the concrete facts, on which he bases his contention. The laws and facts to which he appeals may be summarized as follows:

1. The concrete facts of geology do not warrant our singling out any fossiliferous deposit as unquestionably the oldest, and hence we have no reliable starting-point for our time-scale, because:

(a) We may lay it down as an empirical law that “any kind of fossiliferous rock (even the ‘youngest’), that is, strata belonging to any of the systems or other subdivisions, may rest directly upon the Archæan or primitive crystalline rocks, without any other so-called ‘younger’ strata intervening; also these rocks, Permian, Cretaceous, Tertiary, or whatever thus reposing directly on the Archæan may be themselves crystalline or wholly metamorphic in texture. And this applies not alone to small points of contact, but to large areas.”

(b) Conversely: any kind of fossiliferous strata (even the “oldest”) may not only constitute the surface rocks over wide areas,[8] but may consist of loose, unconsolidated materials, thus in both position and texture resembling the “late” Tertiaries or the Pleistocene—“In some regions, notably in the Baltic province and in parts of the United States,” says John Allen Howe, alluding to the Cambrian rocks around the Baltic Sea and in Wisconsin, “the rocks still retain their original horizontality of deposition, the muds are scarcely indurated, and the sands are incoherent.” (Encycl. Brit., vol. V, p. 86.)

A large number of striking instances are cited by Price to substantiate the foregoing rule and its converse. The impression left is that not only is the starting-point of the time-scale in doubt, but that, if we were to judge the age of the rocks by their physical appearance and position, we could not accept the conventional verdicts of modern geology, which makes fossil evidence prevail over every other consideration.

2. When two contiguous strata are parallel to each other, and there is no indication of disturbance in the lower bed, nor any evidence of erosion along the plane of contact, the two beds are said to exhibit conformity, and this is ordinarily interpreted by geologists as a sign that the upper bed has been laid down in immediate sequence to the lower, and that there has been a substantial continuity of deposition, with no long interval during which the lower bed was exposed as surface to the agents of erosion. When such a conformity exists, as it frequently does, between a “recent” stratum, above, and what is said (according to the testimony of the fossils) to be a very “ancient” stratum, below, and though the two are so alike lithologically as to be mistaken for one and the same formation, nevertheless, such a conformity is termed a “non-evident disconformity,” or “deceptive conformity,” implying that, inasmuch as the “lost interval,” representing, perhaps, a lapse of “several million years,” is entirely unrecorded by any intervening deposition, or any erosion, or any disturbance of the lower bed, we should not have suspected that so great a hiatus had intervened, were it not for the testimony of the fossils. Price cites innumerable examples, and sums them up in the general terms of the following empirical law: “Any sort of fossiliferous formation may occur on top of any other ‘older’ fossiliferous formation, with all the physical evidences of perfect conformity, just as if these alleged incongruous or mismated formations had in reality followed one another in quick succession.”

A quotation from Schuchert’s “Textbook of Geology,” (1920), may be given by way of illustration: “The imperfection,” we read, “of the geologic column is greatest in the interior of North America and more so in the north than in the south. This imperfection is in many places very marked, since an entire period or several periods may be absent. With such great breaks in the local sections the natural assumption is that these gaps are easily seen in the sequence of the strata, but in many places the beds lie in such perfect conformity upon one another that the breaks are not noticeable by the eye and can be proved to exist only by the entombed fossils on each side of a given bedding plane.... Stratigraphers are, as a rule, now fully aware of the imperfections in the geologic record, but the rocks of two unrelated formations may rest upon each other with such absolute conformability as to be completely deceptive. For instance, in the Bear Grass quarries at Louisville, Ky., a face of limestone is exposed in which the absolute conformability of the beds can be traced for nearly a mile, and yet within 5 feet of vertical thickness is found a Middle Silurian coral bed overlain by another coral zone of Middle Devonian. The parting between these two zones is like that between any two limestone beds, but this insignificant line represents a stratigraphic hiatus the equivalent of the last third of Silurian and the first of Devonian time. But such disconformities are by no means rare, in fact are very common throughout the wide central basin area of North America.” (Op. cit., II, pp. 586-588.)

In such cases, the stratigraphical relations give no hint of any enormous gap at the line of contact. On the contrary, there is every evidence of unbroken sequence, and the physical appearances are as if these supposed “geological epochs” had never occurred in the localities, of which there is question. Everything points to the conclusion that the alleged long intervals of time between such perfectly conformable, and, often, lithologically identical, formations are a pure fiction elaborated for the purpose of bolstering up the dogma of the universal applicability of the European classification of fossiliferous rocks. Why not take the facts as we find them? Why resort to tortuous explanations for the mere purpose of saving an arbitrary time-scale? Why insist on a definite time-value for fossils, when it drives us to the extremity of discrediting the objective evidence of physical facts in deference to the preconceptions of orthodox geology? Were it not for theoretical considerations, these stratigraphic facts would be taken at their face value, and the need of saving the reputation of the fossil as an infallible time index is not sufficiently imperative to warrant so drastic a revision of the physical evidence.

3. The third class of facts militating against the time-value of index fossils, are what Price describes as “deceptive conformities turned upside down,” and what orthodox geology tries to explain away as “thrusts,” “thrust faults,” “overthrusts,” “low-angle faulting,” etc.[9] In instances of this kind we find the accepted order of the fossiliferous strata reversed in such a way that the “younger” strata are conformably overlain by “older” strata, and the “older” strata are sometimes interbedded between “younger” strata. “In many places all over the world,” says Price, “fossils have been found in a relative order which was formerly thought to be utterly impossible. That is, the fossils have been found in the ‘wrong’ order, and on such a scale that there can be no mistake about it. For when an area 500 miles long and from 20 to 50 miles wide is found with Palæozoic rocks on top, or composing the mountains, and with Cretaceous beds underneath, or composing the valleys, and running under these mountains all around, as in the case of the Glacier National Park and the southern part of Alberta, the old notion about the exact and invariable order of the fossils has to be given up entirely.”

Price formulates his third law as follows: “Any fossiliferous formation, ‘old’ or ‘young,’ may occur conformably on any other fossiliferous formation, ‘younger’ or ‘older.’” The corollary of this empirical law is that we are no longer justified in regarding any fossils as intrinsically older than other fossils, and that our present classification of fossiliferous strata has a taxonomic, rather than a historical, value.

Low-angle faulting is the phenomenon devised by geologists to meet the difficulty of “inverted sequence,” when all other explanations fail. Immense mountain masses are said to have been detached from their roots and pushed horizontally over the surface (without disturbing it in the least), until they came finally to rest in perfect conformity upon “younger” strata, so that the plane of slippage ended by being indistinguishable from an ordinary horizontal bedding plane. These gigantic “overthrusts” or “thrust faults” are a rather unique phenomenon. Normal faulting is always at a high angle closely approaching the vertical, but “thrust faults” are at a low angle closely approximating the horizontal, and there is enormous displacement along the plane of slippage. The huge mountain masses are said to have been first lifted up and then thrust horizontally for vast distances, sometimes for hundreds of miles, over the face of the land, being thus pushed over on top of “younger” rocks, so as to repose upon the latter in a relation of perfectly conformable superposition. R. G. McConnell, of the Canadian Survey, comments on the remarkable similarity between these alleged “thrust planes” and ordinary stratification planes, and he is at a loss to know why the surface soil was not disturbed by the huge rock masses which slid over it for such great distances. Speaking of the Bow River Gap, he says: “The fault plane here is nearly horizontal, and the two formations, viewed from the valley appear to succeed one another conformably,” and then having noted that the underlying Cretaceous shales are “very soft,” he adds that they “have suffered little by the sliding of the limestones over them.” (An. Rpt. 1886, part D., pp. 33, 34, 84.) Credat Iudaeus Apella, non ego!

Schuchert describes the Alpine overthrust as follows: “The movement was both vertical and thrusting from the south and southeast, from the southern portion of Tethys, elevating and folding the Tertiary and older strata of the northern areas of this mediterranean into overturned, recumbent, and nearly horizontal folds, and pushing the southern or Lepontine Alps about 60 miles to the northward into the Helvetic region. Erosion has since carved up these overthrust sheets, leaving remnants lying on foundations which belong to a more northern portion of the ancient sea. Most noted of these residuals of overthrust masses is the Matterhorn, a mighty mountain without roots, a stranger in a foreign geologic environment,” (Pirsson & Schuchert’s “Textbook of Geology,” 1920, II, p. 924.)

With such a convenient device as the “overthrust” at his disposal, it is hard to see how any possible concrete sequence of fossiliferous strata could contradict the preconceptions of an evolutionary geologist. The hypotheses and assumptions involved, however, are so tortuous and incredible, that nothing short of fanatical devotion to the theory of transformism can render them acceptable. “Examples,” says Price, “of strata in the ‘wrong’ order were first reported from the Alps nearly half a century ago. Since that time, whole armfuls of learned treatises in German, in French, and in English have been written to explain the wonderful conditions there found. The diagrams that have been drawn to account for the strange order of the strata are worthy to rank with the similar ones by the Ptolemaic astronomers picturing the cycles and epicycles required to explain the peculiar behavior of the heavenly bodies in accordance with the geocentric theory of the universe then prevailing.... In Scandinavia, a district some 1,120 miles long by 80 miles wide is alleged to have been pushed horizontally eastward ‘at least 86 miles.’ (Schuchert.) In Northern China, one of these upside down areas is reported by the Carnegie Research Expedition to be 500 miles long.” (“The New Geology,” 1923, pp. 633, 634.)

Nor are the epicyclic subterfuges of the evolutionary geologist confined to “deceptive conformities” and “overthrusts.” His inventive genius has hit upon other methods of explaining away inconvenient facts. When, for example, “younger” fossils are found interbedded with “older” fossils, and the discrepancy in time is not too great, he rids himself of the difficulty of their premature appearance by calling them a “pioneer colony.” Similarly, when a group of “characteristic” fossils occur in one age, skip another “age,” and recur in a third, he recognizes the possibility of “recurrent faunas,” some of these faunas having as many as five successive “recurrences.” Clearly, the assumption of gradual approximation and the dogma that the lower preceded the higher forms of life are things to be saved at all costs, and it is a foregone conclusion that no facts will be suffered to conflict with these irrevisable articles of evolutionary faith. “What is the use,” exclaims Price, “of pretending that we are investigating a problem of natural science, if we already know beforehand that the lower and more generalized forms of animals and plants came into existence first, and the higher and the more specialized came only long afterwards, and that specimens of all these successive types have been pigeonholed in the rocks in order to help us illustrate this wonderful truth?” (Op. cit., pp. 667, 668.)

The predominance of extinct species in certain formations is said to be an independent argument of their great age. Most of the species of organisms found as fossils in Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian rocks are extinct, whereas modern types abound in Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks. Hence it is claimed that the former must be vastly older than the latter. But this argument gratuitously assumes the substantial perfection of the stone record of ancient life and unwarrantedly excludes the possibility of a sudden impoverishment of the world’s flora and fauna as the result of a sweeping catastrophe, of which our present species are the fortunate survivors. Now the fact that certain floras and faunas skip entire systems of rocks to reappear only in later formations is proof positive that the record of ancient life is far from being complete, and we have in the abundant fossil remains of tropical plants and animals, found in what are now the frozen arctic regions, unmistakable evidence of a sudden catastrophic change by which a once genial climate “was abruptly terminated. For carcasses of the Siberian elephants were frozen so suddenly and so completely that the flesh has remained untainted.” (Dana.) Again, the mere fact of extinction tells us nothing about the time of the extinction. For this we are obliged to fall back on the index fossil whose inherent time-value is based on the theory of evolution and not on stratigraphy. Hence the argument from extinct species is not an independent argument.

To sum up, therefore, the aprioristic evolutional series of fossils is not a genuine time-scale. The only safe criterion of comparative age is that of stratigraphic superposition, and this is inapplicable outside of limited local areas.[10] The index fossil is a reliable basis for the chronological correlation of beds only in case one is already convinced on other grounds of the actuality of evolution, but for the unbiased inquirer it is destitute of any inherent time-value. In other words, we can no longer be sure that a given formation is old merely because it happens to contain Cambrian fossils, nor that a rock is young merely because it chances to contain Tertiary fossils. Our present classification of rocks according to their fossil contents is purely arbitrary and artificial, being tantamount to nothing more than a mere taxonomical classification of the forms of ancient life on our globe, irrespective of their comparative antiquity. This scheme of classification is, indeed, universally applicable, and places can usually be found in it for new fossiliferous strata, whenever and wherever discovered. Its universal applicability, however, is due not to any prevalent order of invariable sequence among fossiliferous strata, but solely to the fact that the laws of biological taxonomy and ecology are universal laws which transcend spatial and temporal limitation. If a scheme of taxonomy is truly scientific, all forms of life, whether extant or extinct, will fit into it quite readily.

The anomalies of spatial distribution constitute a sixth difficulty for transformistic palæontology. In constructing a phylogeny the most diverse and widely-separated regions are put under tribute to furnish the requisite fossils, no heed being paid to what are now at any rate impassable geographical barriers, not to speak of the climatic and environmental limitations which restrict the migrations of non-cosmopolitan species within the boundaries of narrow habitats. Hypothetical lineages of a modern form of life are frequently constructed from fossil remains found in two or more continents separated from one another by immense distances and vast oceanic expanses. When taxed with failure to plausibleize this procedure, the evolutionist meets the difficulty by hypothecating wholesale and devious migrations to and fro, and by raising up alleged land bridges to accommodate plants and animals in their suppositional migrations from one continent to another, etc.

The European horse, with his so-called ancestry interred, partly in the Tertiary deposits of Europe, but mostly in those of North America, is a typical instance of these anomalies in geographical distribution. It would, of course, be preposterous to suppose that two independent lines of descent could have fortuitously terminated in the production of one and the same type, namely, the genus Equus. Moreover, to admit for a moment that the extinct American Equus and the extant European Equus had converged by similar stages from distinct origins would be equivalent, as we have seen, to a surrender of the basic postulate that structural similarity rests on the principle of inheritance. Nothing remains, therefore, but to hypothecate a Tertiary land bridge between Europe and North America.

Modern geologists, however, are beginning to resent these arbitrary interferences with their science in the interest of biological theories. Land bridges, they rightly insist, should be demonstrated by means of positive geological evidence and not by the mere exigencies of a hypothetical genealogy. Whosoever postulates a land bridge between continents should be able to adduce solid reasons, and to assign a mechanism capable of accomplishing the five-mile uplift necessary to bring a deep-sea bottom to the surface of the hydrosphere. Such an idea is extravagant and not to be easily entertained in our day, when geologists are beginning to understand the principle of isostasy. To-day, the crust of the earth, that is, the entire surface of the lithosphere, is conceived as being constituted of earth columns, all of which rest with equal weight upon the level of complete compensation, which exists at a depth of some 76 miles below land surfaces. At this depth viscous flows and undertows of the earth take place, compensating all differences of gravitational stress. Hence the materials constituting a mountain column are thought to be less dense than those constituting the surrounding lowland columns, and for this reason the mountains are buoyed up above the surrounding landscape. The columns under ocean bottoms, on the contrary, are thought to consist of heavy materials like basalt, which tend to depress the column. To raise a sea floor, therefore, some means of producing a dilatation of these materials would have to be available. Arthur B. Coleman called attention to this difficulty in his Presidential Address to the Geological Society of America (December 29, 1915), and we cannot do better than quote his own statement of the matter here:

“Admitting,” he says, “that in the beginning the lithosphere bulged up in places, so as to form continents, and sagged in other places, so as to form ocean beds, there are interesting problems presented as to the permanence of land and seas. All will admit marginal changes affecting large areas, but these encroachments of the sea on the continents and the later retreats may be of quite a subordinate kind, not implying an interchange of deep-sea bottoms and land surfaces. The essential permanence of continents and oceans has been firmly held by many geologists, notably Dana among the older ones, and seems reasonable; but there are geologists, especially palæontologists, who display great recklessness in rearranging land and sea. The trend of a mountain range, or the convenience of a running bird, or a marsupial afraid to wet his feet seems sufficient warrant for hoisting up any sea bottom to connect continent with continent. A Gondwana Land arises in place of an Indian Ocean and sweeps across to South America, so that a spore-bearing plant can follow up an ice age; or an Atlantis ties New England to Old England to help out the migrations of a shallow-water fauna; or a ‘Lost Land of Agulhas’ joins South Africa and India.

“It is curious to find these revolutionary suggestions made at a time when geodesists are demonstrating that the earth’s crust over large areas, and perhaps everywhere, approaches a state of isostatic equilibrium, and that isostatic compensation is probably complete at a depth of only 76 miles” ... and (having noted the difference of density that must exist between the continental, and submarine, earth columns) Coleman would have us bear in mind “that to transform great areas of sea bottom into land it would be necessary either to expand the rock beneath by several per cent or to replace heavy rock, such as basalt, by lighter materials, such as granite. There is no obvious way in which the rock beneath a sea bottom can be expanded enough to lift it 20,000 feet, as would be necessary in parts of the Indian Ocean, to form a Gondwana land; so one must assume that light rocks replace heavy ones beneath a million square miles of ocean floor. Even with unlimited time, it is hard to imagine a mechanism that could do the work, and no convincing geological evidence can be brought forward to show that such a thing ever took place.... The distribution of plants and animals should be arranged for by other means than by the wholesale elevation of ocean beds to make dry land bridges for them.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1916, pp. 269-271.)

A seventh anomaly of palæontological phylogeny is what may be described as contrariety of direction. We are asked to believe, for example, that in mammals racial development resulted in dimensional increase. The primitive ancestor of mammoths, mastodons, and elephants is alleged to have been the Moeritherium, “a small tapirlike form, from the Middle Eocene Qasr-el-Sagha beds of the Fayûm in Egypt.... Moeritherium measured about 3½ feet in height.” (Lull: Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1908, pp. 655, 656.) The ancestor of the modern horse, we are told, was “a little animal less than a foot in height, known as Eohippus, from the rocks of the Eocene age.” (Woodruff: “Foundations of Biology,” p. 361.) In the case of insects, on the other hand, we are asked to believe the exact reverse, namely, that racial development brought about dimensional reduction. “In the middle of the Upper Carboniferous periods,” says Anton Handlirsch, “the forest swamps were populated with cockroaches about as long as a finger, dragonfly-like creatures with a wing spread of about 2½ feet, while insects that resemble our May flies were as big as a hand.” (“Die fossilen Insekten, und die Phylogenie der recenten Formen,” 1908, L. c., p. 1150.) Contrasting one of these giant palæozoic dragonflies, Meganeura monyi Brongn., with the largest of modern dragonflies, Aeschna grandis L., Chetverikov exclaims with reference to the latter: “What a pitiful pigmy it is and its specific name (grandis) sounds like such a mockery.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1918, p. 446.) Chetverikov, it is true, proposes a teleological reason for this progressive diminution, but the fact remains that for dysteleological evolutionism, which dispenses with the postulate of a Providential coördination and regulation of natural agencies, this diminuendo of the “evolving” insects stands in irreconcilable opposition to the crescendo of the “evolving” mammals, and constitutes a difficulty which a purely mechanistic philosophy can never surmount.

Not to prolong excessively this already protracted enumeration of discrepancies between fossil fact and evolutionary assumption, we shall mention, as an eighth and final difficulty, the indubitable persistence of unchanged organic types from the earliest geological epochs down to the present time. This phenomenon is all the more wonderful in view of the fact that the decision as to which are to be the “older” and which the “younger” strata rests with the evolutionary geologist, who is naturally disinclined to admit the antiquity of strata containing modern types, and whose position as arbiter enables him to date formations aprioristically, according to the exigencies of the transformistic theory. Using, as he does, the absence of modern types as an express criterion of age, and having, as it were, his pick among the various fossiliferous deposits, one would expect him to be eminently successful in eliminating from the stratigraphic groups selected for senior honors all strata containing fossil types identical with modern forms. Since, however, even the most ingenious sort of geological gerrymandering fails to make this elimination complete, we must conclude that the evidence for persistence of type is inescapable and valid under any assumption.

When we speak of persistent types, we mean generic and specific, rather than phyletic, types, although it is assuredly true that the persistence of the great phyla, from their abrupt and contemporaneous appearance in Cambrian and pre-Cambrian rocks down to the present day, constitutes a grave difficulty for progressive evolution in general and monophyletic evolution in particular. All the great invertebrate types, such as the protozoa, the annelida, the brachiopoda, and large crustaceans called eurypterids, are found in rocks of the Proterozoic group, despite the damaged condition of the Archæan record, while in the Cambrian they are represented by a great profusion of forms. “The Lower Cambrian species,” says Dana, “have not the simplicity of structure that would naturally be looked for in the earliest Palæozoic life. They are perfect of their kind and highly specialized structures. No steps from simple kinds leading up to them have been discovered; no line from the protozoans up to corals, echinoderms, or worms, or from either of these groups up to brachiopods, mollusks, trilobites, or other crustaceans. This appearance of abruptness in the introduction of Cambrian life is one of the striking facts made known by geology.” (“Manual,” p. 487.) Thus, as we go backward in time, we find the great organic phyla retaining their identity and showing no tendency to converge towards a common origin in one or a few ancestral types. For this reason, as we shall see presently, geologists are beginning to relegate the evolutionary process to unknown depths below the explored portion of the “geological column.” What may lurk in these unfathomed profundities, it is, of course, impossible to say, but, if we are to judge by that part of the column which is actually exposed to view, there is no indication whatever of a steady progression from lower, to higher, degrees of organization, and it takes all the imperturbable idealism of a scientific doctrinaire to discern in such random, abrupt, and unrelated “origins” any evidence of what Blackwelder styles “a slow but steady increase in complexity of structure and in function.” (Science, Jan. 27, 1922, p. 90.)

But, while the permanence of phyletic types excludes progress, that of generic and specific types excludes change, and hence it is in the latter phenomenon, especially, that the theory of transformism encounters a formidable difficulty. Palæobotany furnishes numerous examples of the persistence of unchanged plant forms. Ferns identical with the modern genus Marattia occur in rocks of the Palæozoic group. Cycads indistinguishable from the extant genera Zamia and Cycas are found in strata belonging to the Triassic system, etc., etc.

The same is true of animal types. In all the phyla some genera and even species have persisted unchanged from the oldest strata down to the present day. Among the Protozoa, for example, we have the genus Globigerina (one of the Foraminifera), some modern species of which are identical with those found in the Cretaceous. To quote the words of the Protozoologist, Charles A. Kofoid: “The Protozoa are found in the oldest fossiliferous rocks and the genera of Radiolaria therein conform rather closely to genera living today, while the fossil Dinoflagellata of the flints of Delitzsch are scarcely distinguishable from species living in the modern seas. The striking similarities of the most ancient fossil Protozoa to recent ones afford some ground for the inference that the Protozoa living today differ but little from those when life was young.” (Science, April 6, 1923, p. 397.)

The Metazoa offer similar examples of persistence. Among the Cœlenterata, we have the genus Springopora, whose representatives from the Carboniferous limestones closely resemble some of the present-day reef builders of the East Indies. Species of the brachiopod genera Lingula and Crania occurring in the Cambrian rocks are indistinguishable from species living today, while two other modern genera of the Brachiopoda, namely, Rhynchonella and Discina, are represented among the fossils found in Mesozoic formations. Terebratulina striata, a fossil species of brachiopod occurring in the rocks belonging to the Cretaceous system, is identical with our modern species Terebratulina caput serpentis. Among the Mollusca such genera as Arca, Nucula, Lucina, Astarte, and Nautilus have had a continuous existence since the Silurian, while the genera Lima and Pecten can be traced to the Permian. One genus Pleurotomaria goes back to pre-Cambrian times. As to Tertiary fossils, Woods informs us that “in some of the later Cainozoic formations as many as 90 per cent of the species of mollusks are still living.” (“Palæontology,” 1st ed., p. 2.) Among the Echinodermata, two genera, Cidaris (a sea urchin) and Pentacrinus (a crinoid) may be mentioned as being persistent since the Triassic (“oldest” system of the Mesozoic group). Among the Arthropoda, the horseshoe crab Limulus polyphemus has had a continuous existence since the Lias (i.e. the lowest series of the Jurassic system). Even among the Vertebrata we have instances of persistence. The extant Australian genus Ceratodus, a Dipnoan, has been in existence since the Triassic. Among the fossils of the Jurassic (middle system of the Mesozoic group), Sharks, Rays, and Chimaeroids occur in practically modern forms, while some of the so-called “ganoids” are extremely similar to our present sturgeons and gar pikes—“Some of the Jurassic fishes approximate the teleosts so closely that it seems arbitrary to call them ganoids.” (Scott.)

The instances of persistence enumerated above are those acknowledged by evolutionary palæontologists themselves. This list could be extended somewhat by the addition of several other examples, but even so, it would still be small and insufficient to tip the scales decisively in favor of fixism. On the other hand, we must not forget that the paucity of this list is due in large measure to the fact that our present method of classifying fossiliferous strata was deliberately framed with a view to excluding formations containing modern types from the category of “ancient” beds. Moreover, orthodox palæontology has minimized the facts of persistence to an extent unwarranted even by its own premises. As the following considerations indicate, the actual number of persistent types is far greater, even according to the evolutionary time-scale, than the figure commonly assigned.

First of all, we must take into account the deplorable, if not absolutely dishonest, practice, which is in vogue, of inventing new names for the fossil duplicates of modern species, in order to mask or obscure an identity which conflicts with evolutionary preconceptions. When a given formation fails to fit into the accepted scheme by reason of its fossil anachronisms, or when, to quote the words of Price, “species are found in kinds of rock where they are not at all expected, and where, according to the prevailing theories, it is quite incredible that they should be found ... the not very honorable expedient is resorted to of inventing a new name, specific or even generic, to disguise and gloss over the strange similarity between them and the others which have already been assigned to wholly different formations.” (“The New Geology,” p. 291.) The same observation is made by Heilprin. “It is practically certain,” says the latter, “that numerous forms of life, exhibiting no distinctive characters of their own, are constituted into distinct species for no other reason than that they occur in formations widely separated from those holding their nearest kin.” (“Geographical and Geological Distribution of Animals,” pp. 183, 184.) An instance of this practice occurs in the foregoing list, where a fossil brachiopod identical with a modern species receives the new specific name “striata.” Its influence is also manifest in the previously quoted apology of Scott for calling teleost-like fish “ganoids.”

We must also take into account the imperfection of the fossil record, which is proved by the fact that most of the acknowledged “persistent types” listed above “skip” whole systems and even groups of “later” rocks (which are said to represent enormous intervals of time), only to reappear, at last, in modern times. It is evident that their existence has been continuous, and yet they are not represented in the intervening strata. Clearly, then, the fossil record is imperfect, and we must conclude that many of our modern types actually did exist in the remote past, without, however, leaving behind any vestige of their former presence.

Again, we must frankly confess our profound ignorance with respect to the total number and kinds of species living in our modern seas. Hence our conventional distinction between “extinct” and “extant” species has only a provisory value. Future discoveries will unquestionably force us to admit that many of the species now classed as “extinct” are in reality living forms, which must be added to our list of “persistent types.” “It is by no means improbable,” says Heilprin, “that many of the older genera, now recognized as distinct by reason of our imperfect knowledge concerning their true relationships, have in reality representatives in the modern sea.” (Op. cit. pp. 203, 204.)

Finally, the whole of our present taxonomy of plants and animals, both living and fossil, stands badly in need of revision. Systematists, as we have seen in the second chapter, base their classifications mainly on what they regard as basic or homologous structures, in contradistinction to superficial or adaptive characters. Both kinds of structure, however, are purely somatic, and somatic characters, as previously observed, are not, by themselves, a safe criterion for discriminating between varieties and species. In the light of recent genetical research, we cannot avoid recognizing that there has been far too much “splitting” of organic groups on the basis of differences that are purely fluctuational, or, at most, mutational. Moreover, the distinction between homologous and adaptive structures is often arbitrary and largely a matter of personal opinion, especially when numerous specimens are not available. What the “Cambridge Natural History” says in allusion to the Asteroidea is of general application. “While there is considerable agreement,” we read, “amongst authorities as to the number of families, or minor divisions of unequivocal relationship, to be found in the class Asteroidea, there has been great uncertainty both as to the number and limits of the orders into which the class should be divided, and also as to the limits of the various species. The difficulty about the species is by no means confined to the group Echinodermata; in all cases where the attempt is made to determine species by an examination of a few specimens of unknown age there is bound to be uncertainty; the more so, as it becomes increasingly evident that there is no sharp line to be drawn between local varieties and species. In Echinodermata, however, there is the additional difficulty that the acquisition of ripe genital cells does not necessarily mark the termination of growth; the animals can continue to grow and at the same time slightly alter their characters. For this reason many of the species described may be merely immature forms....

“The disputes, however, as to the number of orders included in the Asteroidea proceed from a different cause. The attempt to construct detailed phylogenies involves the assumption that one set of structures, which we take as the mark of the class, has remained constant, whilst the others which are regarded as adaptive, may have developed twice or thrice. As the two sets of structures are about of equal importance it will be seen to what an enormous extent the personal equation enters in the determination of these questions.” (Op. cit., vol. I, pp. 459, 460.)

In dealing with fossil forms, these difficulties of the taxonomist are intensified: (1) by the sparse, badly-preserved, and fragmentary character of fossil remains; (2) by the fact that here breeding experiments are impossible, and hence the diagnosis based on external characters cannot be supplemented by a diagnosis of the germinal factors. Fossil taxonomy is, in consequence, extremely arbitrary and unreliable. Many fossil forms classed as distinct species, or even as distinct genera, may be nothing more than fluctuants, mutants, hybrids, or immature stages of well-known species living today. Again, many fossils mistaken for distinct species are but different stages in the life-history of a single species, a mistake, which is unavoidable, when specimens are few and the age of the specimens unknown. The great confusion engendered in the classification of the hydrozoa by nineteenth-century ignorance of the alternation of hydroid and medusoid generations is a standing example of the danger of classifying forms without a complete knowledge of the entire life-cycle. When due allowance is made for mutation, hybridization, metagenesis, polymorphism, age and metamorphosis, the number of distinct fossil species will undergo considerable shrinkage. Nor must we overlook the possibility of environmentally-induced modifications. Many organisms, such as mollusks, undergo profound alteration as a result of some important, and, perhaps, relatively permanent, change in their environmental conditions, though such alterations affect only the phenotype, and do not involve a corresponding change in the specific genotype, i.e. the germinal constitution of the race.

In the degree that these considerations are taken into account the number of “extinct” fossil species will diminish and the number of “persistent” species will increase. This is a consummation devoutly to be wished for, but it means that hundreds of thousands of described species must needs be reviewed for the purpose of weeding out the duplicates, and who will have the knowledge, the courage, or even the span of life, necessary to accomplish so gigantic a task?

But so far as the practical purposes of our argument are concerned, the accepted list of persistent types needs no amplification. It suffices, as it stands, to establish the central fact (which, for the rest, is admitted by everyone) that some generic and even specific types have remained unchanged throughout the enormous lapse of time which has intervened between the deposition of the oldest strata and the advent of the present age. Our current theories, far from diminishing the significance of this fact, tend to intensify it by computing the duration of such persistence in millions, rather than in thousands, of years. Now, whatever one’s views may be on the subject of transformism, this prolonged permanence of certain genera and species is an indubitable fact, which is utterly irreconcilable with a universal law of organic evolution. The theory of transformism is impotent to explain an exception so palpable as this; for persistence and transmutation cannot be subsumed under one and the same principle. That which accounts for change cannot account for unchange. Yet unchange is an observed fact, while the change, in this case, is an inferred hypothesis. Hence, even if we accept the principle of transformism, there will always be scope for the principle of permanence. The extraordinary tenacity of type manifested by persistent genera and species is a phenomenon deserving of far more careful study and investigation than the evolutionally-minded scientist of today deigns to bestow upon it. To the latter it may seem of little consequence, but, to the genuine scientist, the actual persistence of types should be of no less interest than their possible variability.

With these reflections, our criticism of the palæontological argument terminates. The enumeration of its various deficiencies was not intended as a refutation. To disprove the theory of organic evolution is a feat beyond our power to accomplish. We can only adduce negative evidence, whose scope is to show that the various evolutionary arguments are inconsequential or inconclusive. We cannot rob the theory of its intrinsic possibility, and sheer justice compels us to confess that certain facts, like those of symbiotic preadaptation, lend themselves more readily to a transformistic, than to a fixistic, interpretation. On the other hand, nothing is gained by ignoring flaws so obvious and glaring as those which mar the cogency of palæontological “evidence.” The man who would gloss them over is no true friend either of Science or of the scientific theory of Evolution! They represent so many real problems to be frankly faced and fully solved, before the palæontological argument can become a genuine demonstration. But until such time as a demonstration of this sort is forthcoming, the evolutionist must not presume to cram his unsubstantiated theory down our reasonably reluctant throats. To accept as certain what remains unproved, is to compromise our intellectual sincerity. True certainty, which rests on the recognition of objective necessity, will never be attainable so long as difficulties that sap the very base of evolutionary argumentation are left unanswered; and, as for those who, in the teeth of discordant factual evidence, profess, nevertheless, to have certainty regarding the “fact” of evolution, we can only say that such persons cannot have a very high or exacting conception of what scientific certainty really means.

For the rest, it cannot even be said that the palæontological record furnishes good circumstantial evidence that our globe has been the scene of a process of organic evolution. In fact, so utterly at variance with this view is the total impression conveyed by the visible portion of the geological column, that the modern geologist proposes, as we have seen, to probe depths beneath its lowest strata for traces of that alleged transmutation, which higher horizons do not reveal. There are six to eight thick terranes below the Cambrian, we are told, and igneous masses that were formerly supposed to be basal have turned out to be intrusions into sedimentary accumulations, all of which, of course, is fortunate for the theory of organic evolution, as furnishing it with a sadly needed new court of appeal. The bottom, so to speak, has dropped out of the geological column, and Prof. T. C. Chamberlin announces the fact as follows: “The sharp division into two parts, a lifeless igneous base and a sedimentary fossiliferous superstructure, has given place to the general concept of continuity with merely minor oscillations in times and regions of major activity. Life has been traced much below the Cambrian, but its record is very imperfect. The recent discoveries of more ample and varied life in the lower Palæozoic, particularly the Cambrian, implies, under current evolutional philosophy, a very great downward extension of life. In the judgment of some biologists and geologists, this extension probably reaches below all the pre-Cambrian terranes as yet recognized, though this pre-Cambrian extension is great. The ‘Azoic’ bottom has retired to depths unknown. This profoundly changes the life aspect of the ‘column.’” (Science, Feb. 8, 1924, p. 128.) All this is doubtless true, but such an appeal, from the known to the unknown, from the actual to the possible, is not far-removed from a confession of scientific insolvency. Life must, of course, have had an earlier history than that recorded in the pre-Cambrian rocks. But even supposing that some portion of an earlier record should become accessible to us, it could not be expected to throw much light on the problem of organic origins. Most of the primordial sediments have long since been sapped and engulfed by fiery magmas, while terranes less deep have, in all probability, been so metamorphosed that every trace of their fossil contents has perished. The sub-Archæan beginnings of life will thus remain shrouded forever in a mystery, which we have no prospect of penetrating. Hence it is the exposed portion of the geological column which continues and will continue to be our sole source of information, and it is preëminently on this basis that the evolutionary issue will have to be decided.

Yet what could be more enigmatic than the rock record as it stands? For in nature it possesses none of that idealized integrity and coherence, with which geology has invested it for the purpose of making it understandable. Rather it is a mighty chaos of scattered and fragmentary fossiliferous formations, whose baffling complexity, discontinuity, and ambiguity tax the ingenuity of the most sagacious interpreters. Transformism is the key to one possible synthesis, which might serve to unify that intricate mass of facts, but it is idle to pretend that this theory is the unique and necessary corollary of the facts as we find them. The palæontological argument is simply a theoretical construction which presupposes evolution instead of proving it. Its classic pedigrees of the horse, the camel, and the elephant are only credible when we have assumed the “fact” of evolution, and even then, solely upon condition that they claim to approximate, rather than assign, the actual ancestry of the animals in question. In palæontology, as in the field of zoölogy, evolution is not a conclusion, but an interpretation. In palæontology, otherwise than in the field of genetics, evolution is not amenable to the check of experimental tests, because here it deals not with that which is, but with that which was. Here the sole objective basis is the mutilated and partially obliterated record of a march of events, which no one has observed and which will never be repeated. These obscure and fragmentary vestiges of a vanished past, by reason of their very incompleteness, lend themselves quite readily to all sorts of theories and all sorts of speculations. Of the “Stone Book of the Universe” we may say with truth that which Oliver Wendell Holmes says of the privately-interpreted Bible, namely, that its readers take from it the same views which they had previously brought to it. “I am, however, thoroughly persuaded,” say the late Yves Delage, “that one is or is not a transformist, not so much for reasons deduced from natural history, as for motives based on personal philosophic opinions. If there existed some other scientific hypothesis besides that of descent to explain the origin of species, many transformists would abandon their present opinion as not being sufficiently demonstrated.... If one takes his stand upon the exclusive ground of the facts, it must be acknowledged that the formation of one species from another species has not been demonstrated at all.” (“L’herédité et les grands problèmes de la biologie générale,” Paris, 1903, pp. 204, 322.)

II THE PROBLEM OF ORIGINS

CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN OF LIFE — § 1. The Theory of Spontaneous Generation — § 2. The Law of Genetic Continuity— — § 3. Chemical Theories of the Origin of Life — § 4. Reproduction and Rejuvenation — § 5. A “New” Theory of Abiogenesis — § 6. Hylomorphism versus Mechanism and Neo-vitalism — § 7. The Definition of Life — § 8. An Inevitable Corollary — § 9. Futile Evasions

CHAPTER II THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SOUL — § 1. Matter and Spirit — § 2. The Science of the Soul — § 3. The Nature of the Human Soul — § 4. Darwinian Anthropomorphism — § 5. The True Significance of Instinct

We live in an age in which scientific specialization is stressed as the most important means of advancing the interests of human knowledge; and specialism, by reason of its many triumphs, seems to have deserved, in large measure, the prestige which it now enjoys. It has, however, the distinct disadvantage of fostering provincialism and separatism. This lopsided learning of the single track mind is a condition that verges on paranoia, leads to naïve contempt for all knowledge not reducible to its own set of formulæ, and portends, in the near future, a Babel-like confusion of tongues. In fact, the need of a corrective is beginning to be felt in many quarters. This corrective can be none other than the general and synthetic science of philosophy; it is philosophy alone that can furnish a common ground and break down the barriers of exclusiveness which immure the special sciences within the minds of experts.

Scientists readily admit the advantage of philosophy in theory, but in practice their approval is far from being unqualified. A subservient philosophy, which accepts without hesitation all the current dogmas of contemporary science, is one thing, and a critical philosophy venturing to apply the canons of logic to so-called scientific proof is quite another. Philosophy of the latter type is promptly informed that it has no right to any opinion whatever, and that only the scientific specialist is qualified to speak on such subjects. But the disqualification, which is supposed to arise from lack of special knowledge, is just as promptly forgotten, when there is question of philosophy in the rôle of a pliant sycophant, and the works of a Wells or a van Loon are lauded to the skies, despite the glaring examples of scientific inaccuracy and ignorance, in which they abound.

This partiality is sometimes carried to a degree that makes it perfectly preposterous. Thus it is by no means an infrequent thing to find scientists dismissing, as unworthy of a hearing, a philosopher like Hans Driesch, who spent the major portion of his life in biological research, and combined the technical discipline of a scientist with the mental discipline of a logician. The chemist, H. E. Armstrong, for instance, sees in the mere label “philosopher” a sufficient reason for barring his testimony. “Philosophers,” jeers the chemist, with flippant irrelevance, “must go to school and study in the purlieus of experimental science, if they desire to speak with authority on these matters.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 528.) Such is his comment on Driesch, yet Driesch did nothing at all, if he did not do far more than Armstrong prescribes as a prerequisite for authoritative speaking. In James Harvey Robinson, on the contrary, we have an example of the tendency of scientists to coddle philosophers who assume a docile, deferential, and submissive attitude towards every generalization propounded in the name of natural science. In sheer gratitude for his uncritical acquiescence, his incapacitation as a nonspecialist is considerately overlooked, and he can confess, without the slightest danger of discrediting his own utterances: “I am not ... a biologist or palæontologist. But I have had the privilege of consorting familiarly with some of the very best representatives of those who have devoted their lives to the patient study of the matters involved in this controversy. I think I quite understand their attitude.” (Harper’s Magazine, June, 1922, p. 68.) By his own testimony he is a scientific amateur, but this does not, in the least, prevent him from “speaking with authority” or from being lionized in scientific circles as an evolutionary “defender of the faith.” Clearly, it is the nature of their respective views, and not the possession or absence of technical knowledge, which makes Robinson a favorite, and Driesch a persona non grata, with “the very best representatives” of contemporary science. “Science,” says a writer in the Atlantic Monthly (Oct., 1915), “has turned all philosophy out of doors except that which clings to its skirts; it has thrown contempt on all learning that does not depend upon it; and it has bribed the sketches by giving us immense material comforts.”

Here, however, we are concerned with the fact, rather than the justice, of this discrimination which the scientific world makes between philosopher and philosopher. Certain it is that Robinson has received no end of encomiums from scientists, who apparently lack the literary gifts to expound their own philosophy, and that his claim to represent the views of a large and influential section of the scientific world is, in all probability, entirely correct. It is this manifest approval of scientific men which lends especial interest to the remarks of this scientific dilettante, and we shall quote them as expressing the prevalent scientific view on the origin of man, a view which, with but slight variations, has persisted from the time of Darwin down to the present day.

“The recognition,” says Robinson, “that mankind is a species of animal, is, like other important discoveries, illuminating.” (Science, July 28, 1922, p. 74.) To refer to the recognition of man’s animality as a discovery is a conceit too stupid for mere words to castigate. Surely, there was no need of the profound research or delicate precision of modern science to detect the all too obvious similarity existing between man and beast. Mankind did not have to await the advent of an “enlightened” nineteenth, or twentieth century to be assured of the truth of a commonplace so trite and palpable. Even the “benighted” scholastics of medieval infamy had wit enough to define man as a rational animal. Indeed, it would be a libel on human intelligence to suppose that anyone, in the whole history of human thought, was ever sufficiently fatuous to dispute the patent fact that man is a sentient organism compounded of flesh, blood, bone, and sinew like the brute. The “discovery” that man is a species of animal dates from the year one of human existence, and it is now high time for the novelty of this discovery to be worn off.

Even as a difficulty against human superiority and immortality, the “recognition” is by no means recent. We find it squarely faced in a book of the Old Testament, the entire book being devoted to the solution of the difficulty in question. “I said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men ... that they might see they are themselves beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that man hath no preeminence above a beast; for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all return to dust. Who knoweth the spirit of man whether it goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast whether it goeth downward to the earth?” (Ecclesiastes, III: 18-21.) The sacred writer insists that, so far as the body is concerned, man and the brute stand on the same level; but what of the human soul? Is it, he asks, resolvable into matter like the soul of a beast, or is it a supermaterial principle destined, not for time, but for eternity? At the close of the book, the conclusion is reached that the latter alternative is the true solution of the riddle of human nature—“the dust returneth to the earth whence it was, and the spirit returneth to God who gave it.” (Ch. XII, v. 7.)

Centuries, therefore, before the Christian era, this problem was formulated by Ecclesiastes, the Jew, and also, as we shall presently see, by Aristotle, the coryphæus of Greek philosophy. Nay, from time immemorial man, contrasting his aspirations after immortality with the spectacle of corporal death, has appreciated to the full the significance of his own animality. Never was there question of whether man is, or is not, just as thoroughly an animal as any beast, but rather of whether, his animal nature being unhesitatingly conceded, we are not, none the less, forced to recognize in him, over and above this, the existence of a spiritual mind or soul, differentiating him from the brute and constituting him a being unique, despite the unmistakable homologies discernible between bestial organisms and the human body. Everywhere and always mankind as a whole have manifested, by the universal and uniquely human practice of burying the dead, their unswerving and indomitable conviction that man is spirit as well as flesh, an animal, indeed, yet animated by something not present in the animal, namely, a spiritual soul, deathless and indestructible, capable of surviving the decay of the organism and of persisting throughout eternity.

But, if the human mind or soul is spiritual, it is clear that it cannot be a product of organic evolution, any more than it can be a product of parental generation. On the contrary, each and every human soul must be an immediate creation of the Author of Nature, not evolved from the internal potentiality of matter, but infused into matter from without. The human soul is created in organized matter, but not from it. Nor can the Divine action, in this case, be regarded as a supernatural interposition; for it supplements, rather than supersedes, the natural process of reproduction; and, since it is not in matter to produce spirit, a creative act is demanded by the very nature of things.

Evolution is nothing more nor less than a transmutation of matter, and a transmutation of matter cannot terminate in the annihilation of matter and the constitution of non-matter or spirit. If nothing of the terminus a quo persists in the final product, we have substitution, and not transmutation. The evolution of matter, therefore, cannot progress to a point where all materiality is eliminated. Hence, whatever proceeds from matter, either as an emanation or an action, will, of necessity, be material. It should be noted, however, that by material we do not mean corporeal; for material denotes not merely matter itself, but everything that intrinsically depends on matter. The term, therefore, is wider in its sense than corporeal, because it comprises, besides matter, all the properties, energies, and activities of matter. Hence whatever is incapable of existence and activity apart from matter (whether ponderable or imponderable) belongs to the material, as distinguished from the spiritual, order of things. The soul of a brute, for example, is not matter, but it is material, nevertheless, because it is totally dependent on the matter of the organism, apart from which it has neither existence nor activity of its own.

In the constitution of the sentient or animal soul, matter reaches the culmination of its passive evolution. True, its inherent physicochemical forces do not suffice to bring about this consummation, wherewith its internal potentiality is exhausted. Nevertheless, the emergence of an animal soul from matter is conceivable, given an agency competent to educe it from the intrinsic potentiality of matter; for, in the last analysis, the animal soul is simply an internal modification of matter itself. But, if spirit is that which exists, or is, at least, capable of existence, apart from matter, it goes without saying that spirit is neither derivable from, nor resolvable into, matter of any kind. Consequently, it cannot be evolved from matter, but must be produced in matter by creation (i.e. total production). To make the human mind or soul a product of evolution is equivalent to a denial of its spirituality, because it implies that the human soul like that of the brute, is inherent in the potentiality of matter, and is therefore a purely material principle, totally dependent on the matter, of which it is a perfection. Between such a soul and the sentient principle present in the beast, there would be no essential difference of kind, but only an accidental difference of degree; and this is precisely what Darwin and his successors have spared no effort to demonstrate. James Harvey Robinson is refreshingly frank on this subject, and we will therefore let him be spokesman for those who are more reticent:

“It is the extraordinarily illuminating discovery (sic) of man’s animalhood rather than evolution in general that troubles the routine mind. Many are willing to admit that it looks as if life had developed on the earth slowly, in successive stages; this they can regard as a merely curious fact and of no great moment if only man can be defended as an honorable exception. The fact that we have an animal body may also be conceded, but surely man must have a soul and a mind altogether distinct and unique from the very beginning bestowed on him by the Creator and setting him off an immeasurable distance from any mere animal. But whatever may be the religious and poetic significance of this compromise it is becoming less and less tenable as a scientific and historic truth. The facts indicate that man’s mind is quite as clearly of animal extraction as his body.” (Science, July 28, 1922, p. 95—italics his.)

This language has, at least, the merit of being unambiguous, and leaves us in no uncertainty as to where the writer stands. It discloses, likewise, the animus which motivates his peculiar interest in transformistic theories. If evolution were incapable of being exploited in behalf of materialistic philosophy, Mr. Robinson, we may be sure, would soon lose interest in the theory, and would once more align himself with the company, which he has so inappropriately deserted, namely, “the routine minds” that regard evolution “as a merely curious fact of no great moment.” Be that as it may, his final appeal is to the “facts,” and it is to the facts, accordingly, that we shall go; but they will not be the irrelevant “facts” of anatomy, physiology, and palæontology. Sciences such as these confine their attention to the external manifestations of human life, and can tell us nothing of man’s inner consciousness. It does not, therefore, devolve upon them to pronounce final judgment upon the origin of man. For that which is the distinguishing characteristic of man is not his animal nature, that he shares in common with the brute, but his rational nature, which alone differentiates him from “a beast that wants discourse of reason.” We cannot settle the question as to whether or not man’s mind is “of animal extraction” by comparing his body with the bodies of irrational vertebrates. To institute the requisite comparison between the rational mentality of man and the purely sentient consciousness of irrational animals falls within the exclusive competence of psychology, which studies the internal manifestations of life as they are presented to the intuition of consciousness, rather than biology, which studies life according to such of its manifestations as are perceptible to the external senses. Hence it is within the domain of psychology alone, that man can be studied on his distinctively human, or rational, side, and it is to this science, accordingly, that we must turn in our search for facts that are germane to the problem of the origin of man and the genesis of the human mind. How little, indeed, does he know of human nature, whose knowledge of it is confined to man’s insignificant anatomy and biology, and who knows nothing of the triumphs of human genius in literature, art, science, architecture, music, and a thousand other fields! Psychology alone can evaluate these marvels, and no other science can be of like assistance in solving the problem of whether man is, or is not, unique among all his fellows of the animal kingdom.

As a distinct science, psychology owes its origin to Aristotle, whose “Peri Psyches” is, in all probability, the first formal treatise on the subject. Through his father, Nichomachus, who was court physician to Philip of Macedon, he became acquainted, at an early age, with biological lore in the form of such medical botany, anatomy, and physiology as were commonly known in prescientific days. Subsequently, his celebrated pupil, Alexander the Great, placed at his disposal a vast library, together with extensive opportunities for biological research. This enabled the philosopher to criticize and summarize the observations and speculations of his predecessors in the field, and to improve upon them by means of personal reflection and research. In writing his psychology, he was naturally forced to proceed on the basis of the facts discoverable by internal experience (introspection) and unaided external observation. Of such facts as are only accessible by means of instrumentation and systematic experimentation, he could, of course, know nothing, since their exploration awaited the advent of modern mechanical and optical inventions. But the factual foundation of his treatise, though not extensive, was solid, so far as it went, and his selection, analysis, and evaluation of the materials at hand was so accurate and judicious, that the broad outlines of his system have been vindicated by the test of time, and all the results of modern experimental research fit, with surprising facility, into the framework of his generalizations, revision being nowhere necessary save in nonessentials and minor details. Wilhelm Wundt, the Father of Experimental Psychology, pays him the following tribute: “The results of my labors do not square with the materialistic hypothesis, nor do they with the dualism of Plato or Descartes. It is only the animism of Aristotle which, by combining psychology with biology, results as a plausible metaphysical conclusion from Experimental Psychology.” (“Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie,” 4te Auflage, II, C. 23, S. 633.)

Literally translated, the title of Aristotle’s work signifies a treatise concerning the soul. It set a precedent for the scholastic doctors of the thirteenth century, and de anima became with them a technical designation for all works dealing with this theme. In the sixteenth century the selfsame usage was embalmed in the Greek term psychology, which was coined with a view to rendering the elliptic Latin title by means of a single word. Melanchthon is credited with having originated the term, which, in its original use as well as its etymology, denoted a science of the psyche or soul.

Towards the close of the seventeenth century, however, the meaning of the term in question began to undergo a marvelous evolution, of which the end is not yet. The process was initiated by Descartes, under whose auspices psychology was changed from a science of the soul into a science of the mind. Then, under the influence of Hume and Kant, the noumenal mind disappeared, leaving only phenomenal consciousness. Recently, with the advent of Watson, even consciousness itself has been discarded and psychology has become a science of behavior. And here, for the time being, at any rate, the process has come to a stop, just one step short of complete nihilism. Woodworth quotes the following waggish comment: “First psychology lost its soul, then it lost its mind, then it lost consciousness; it still has behavior of a kind.” (“Psychology, the Science of Mental Life,” p. 2, footnote.) This gradual degeneration of psychology from animism into behaviorism is one of the greatest ironies in the history of human thought. All of this, however, was latent in the corrosive Cartesian principle of “scientific doubt.” Facilis descensus Averni! It is easy to question the validity of this or that kind of human knowledge, but difficult to arrest, or even foresee, the consequences which the remorseless logic of scepticism portends.

Disintegration set in, as has been said, when Descartes substituted his psychophysical dualism of mind and matter for Aristotle’s hylomorphic dualism of soul and body. The French philosopher, in an appendix to his “Meditations,” which dates from 1670, expressly rejects the Aristotelian term of soul or psyche, and announces his preference for mind or spirit, in the following words: “The substance in which thought immediately resides is here called mind (mens, esprit). I here speak, however, of mens (mind) rather than anima (soul), for the latter is equivocal, being frequently applied to denote what is material” (“Reply to the Second Objections,” p. 86). Henceforth psychology ceased to be a science of the soul, and became, instead, a science of the mind.

Descartes, one must bear in mind, divided the universe into two great realms of being, namely: the conscious and the unconscious, the psychic world of mind and the physical world of matter, unextended substance which thinks and extended substance which moves. In man these two substantial principles were conceived as being united by the tenuous link of mere contact, the spirit or mind remaining separate from, and unmingled with, its material partner, the body. The main trouble with this dualism is that it draws the line of demarcation at the wrong place. Reason and sense-consciousness are bracketed together above the line as being equally spiritual; physiological processes and processes purely physicochemical are coupled below the line as being equally mechanical. Now, when a brain-function such as sense-perception is introduced, like another Trojan Horse, into the citadel of spiritualism, it is a comparatively easy task for materialism to storm and sack that citadel by demonstrating with a thousand neuro-physiological facts that all sensory functions are rigidly correlated with neurological processes, that they are, in short, functions of the nervous system, and therefore purely material in nature. On the other hand, once we retreat from the trench of distinction between the processes of unconscious or vegetative life and the physicochemical processes of the inorganic world, that moment we have lost the strategic position in the conflict with mechanism, and nothing avails to stay its triumphant onrush. Hence, from first to last, it is perfectly clear that the treacherous psychophysical dualism of Descartes has done far more harm to the cause of spiritualism than all the assaults of materialism. There is a Latin maxim which says: Extrema sese tangunt—“Extremes come in contact with each other.” The ultraspiritualism of Descartes by confounding spiritual, with organic consciousness, leads by the most direct route to the opposite extreme of crass materialism.

Aristotle’s dualism of matter and form, which is but a physical application of his transcendental dualism of potency (dynamis) and act (entelechy), is very different from the Cartesian dualism of the physical and the psychic. According to the Aristotelian view, as we have seen in the last chapter, all the physical entities or substantial units of nature (both living and inorganic) are fundamentally dual in their essence, each consisting of a definitive principle called entelechy and a plastic principle called matter. Entelechy is the integrating determinant, the source of the unit’s coherence and of its differentiation from units of another type. Matter is the determinable and quantifying factor, in virtue of which the unit is potentially-multiple and endowed with mass. In the electro-chemical reactions of non-living substances (synthesis, analysis, and transmutation), entelechy is the variant and matter is the constant; in the metabolic activities of living substances (assimilation and dissimilation), matter is the variant and entelechy is the constant. This persistent entelechy of the living unit or organism is what Aristotle terms the psyche or soul. The latter, therefore, may be defined as the vital principle or primary source of life in the organism.

But in using such terms as “soul” and “vital principle” we are employing expressions against which not merely rabid mechanists, but many conservative biologists as well, see fit to protest. The opposition of the latter, however, is found on closer scrutiny to be nominal rather than real. It is the name which offends; they have no objection to the thing signified. Wilson, to cite a pertinent example, rejects as meaningless all such terms as “vital principle,” “soul,” etc. “They are words,” he avers, “that have been written into certain spaces that are otherwise blank in our record of knowledge, and as far as I can see no more than this.” (“Biology,” p. 23, 1908.) Yet he himself affirms again and again the existence of the reality which these terms (understood in their Aristotelian sense) denote. In discussing the relation of the tissue cell to the multicellular body, for instance, he speaks of “a formative power pervading the growing mass as a whole.” (“The Cell,” 2nd ed., p. 59), and, in his recent lecture on the “Physical Basis of Life,” he makes allusion to “the integrating and unifying principle in the vital processes.” (Science, March 9, 1923, p. 284.) It would seem, therefore, that Wilson’s aversion to such terms as soul and vital principle is based on the dynamic sense assigned to them by the neo-vitalists, who, as we have seen, regard the vital principle as a force sui generis or a unique agent, which operates intrusively among physicochemical factors in the rôle of an active or efficient cause of vital functions. That such is really the case, appears from his rhetorical question: “Shall we then join hands with the neo-vitalists in referring the unifying and regulatory principle to the operation of an unknown power, a directive force, an archæus, an entelechy or a soul?” (Loc. cit., p. 285—italics mine.) The objection, however, does not apply to these terms used in their Aristotelian sense. In the philosophy of the Stagirite, the soul, like all other entelechies, is a cause in the entitive, but not in the dynamic, order of things. Its efficacy is formal, not efficient. It is not an agent, but a specifying type. The organism must be integrated, specified, and existent before it can operate, and hence its integration and specification by the soul is prior to all vital activity. The soul is a constituent of being and not an immediate principle of action. The soul is not even an entity (in the sense of a complete and separate being), but rather an incomplete entity or constituent of an entity. It takes a complete entity to be an agent, and the soul or vital entelechy is not an independent existent, which is somehow inserted into the organism, but an incomplete being which has no existence of its own, but only coexistence, in the composite that it forms with the organism. Nor is there any such thing as a special vital force resident in the organism. The executive factors in all vital operations of the organic order are the physicochemical energies, which are native to matter in general. These forces, as we have seen, receive a reflexive orientation and are elevated to a higher plane of efficiency by reason of their association with an entelechy superior to the binding and type-determining principles present in inorganic units, but they are not supplanted or superseded by a new executive force. Wilson’s fear, therefore, that the experimental analysis of life is discouraged by vitalism, inasmuch as this conception subtracts something from the efficiency of the physicochemical forces, is groundless in the case of hylomorphic vitalism, but is well-founded in the case of such systems as the neo-vitalism of Driesch and the spiritualism of Descartes.

Summing up, therefore, we may say that the soul, like other entelechies, is consubstantial with its material substrate, the body. True it is more autonomous than are the inflexible entelechies of inorganic nature, inasmuch as it is independent of any given atom, molecule, or cell in the organic aggregate. Such a degree of freedom, for example, is not possessed by the most complex molecules, which show no other flexibility than tautomerism, even this small readjustment involving a change in their specificity. But this autonomy does not preclude the essential dependence of the soul upon the body. Generally speaking, the soul is incapable of existence apart from its total substrate, the organism. We say, generally speaking, because, as previously intimated, an exception must be made in the case of the human soul, which, being, as we shall see, a self-subsistent and spiritual entelechy, is by itself, apart from its material substrate, a sufficient subject of existence, and is therefore capable of surviving the dissolution of its complementary principle, the organism. Nevertheless, even in man, the soul forms one substance with the organism, and the organism participates as a coëfficient factor in all his vital functions, both physiological and psychic, excluding only the superorganic or spiritual functions of rational thought and volition, whose agent and recipient is the soul alone. In man, then, soul and body unite to form a single substance, a single nature, and a single person. Apart from the body, the human soul is, indeed, a complete entity, in the sense that it is capable of subsistence (independent existence), but, in another sense, it is not a complete entity, because apart from the body it cannot constitute a complete nature or complete personality. It is this essential incompleteness of the discarnate human soul that forms the natural basis of the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead.

Here, however, it is important to note the difference between the hylomorphic spiritualism of Aristotle and the psychophysical spiritualism of Descartes. By the latter all conscious or physic functions are regarded as spiritual. The former, however, recognizes the fundamental difference which exists between the lower or animal, and the higher or rational functions of our conscious life. Sense-perception and sensual emotion belong to the former class, and must be regarded as organic functions, whose agent and subject is neither the soul alone nor the organism alone, but the soul-informed organism or substantial composite of body and soul. Rational thinking and willing, on the contrary, are classified as superorganic or spiritual functions, inasmuch as they exclude the coägency of the organism and have the soul alone for their active cause and receptive subject.

The soul, in fine, is the formal principle or primary source of the threefold life in man, namely, the metabolic life, which man shares with plants, the sentient life, which he shares with animals, and the rational life, which is uniquely human. The human soul is often spoken of as the mind. In their dictionary sense, both terms denote one and the same reality, namely, the human entelechy or vital principle in man, but the connotation of these terms is different. The term soul signifies the vital principle in so far as it is the primary source of every kind of life in man, that is, vegetative, sentient, and rational. The term mind, however, connoting conscious rather than unconscious life, signifies the vital principle in so far as it is the root and ground of our conscious life (both sentient and rational). Here, however, the distinction is of no great moment, and the terms may be regarded as synonymous. The definitions which we have given are, of course, blasphemous in the ears of our modern neo-Kantian phenomenalists, whose preference is for a functional, rather than a substantial, mind or soul; but we will pay our respects to them later.

It is clear, however, from what has been said, that, for evidences of the superiority and spirituality of the human soul, we must recur, not to the external manifestations of our nutritive life, but to the internal manifestations of our conscious life. The latter are wholly inaccessible to the external senses and perceptible only to the intuition of consciousness, introspection, or internal experience, as it is variously called. All our self-knowledge rests on the basis of introspection, and without it the science of psychology would be impossible. In fact, not only psychology, but the physical sciences as well, depend for their validity on the testimony of consciousness; for the external world is only knowable to the extent that it enters the domain of our consciousness. Recently, as we have seen, a tendency to discredit internal experience has arisen among materialistic extremists. This “tendency,” to quote the words of Keyser, “most notably represented by the behaviorist school of psychologists (like Professor Watson, for example), is manifest in the distrust of introspections as a means of knowledge of mental phenomena and in the growing dependence of psychology upon external observation of animal and human behavior and upon physiological experiment, as if matter were regarded ‘as something much more solid and indubitable than mind’ (Bertrand Russell).”—C. J. Keyser, Science, Nov. 25, 1921, p. 520. Since, however, all our knowledge depends on the validity of consciousness, such a tendency is suicidal and destructive of all science, whether physical or psychological. The attempts, therefore, of mechanists, like Loeb, and behaviorists, like Watson, to dispense with consciousness overreach themselves. For how can the mechanists know that there are such things as tropisms, tactisms, or reaction-systems, how can the behaviorist study such things as “situations,” “adjustments,” and S-R-bonds, how can the materialist become aware of the existence of molecules and atoms, except through the medium of their own conscious or psychic states? States of matter can be known only by means of states of mind, and the former, therefore, cannot be any more real than the latter. “What, after all,” asks Cardinal Mercier, “is a fact of nature if the mind has not seized, examined, and assimilated it? True, the information of consciousness is often precarious. For this reason we do well to aid and control it by scientific apparatus. These apparatus, however, can only aid, never supplant, introspection. The telescope does not replace the eye, but extends its vision.” (“Relation of Exp. Psych. to Philosophy,” pp. 40, 41—Trans. of Wirth.)

Now our inner consciousness bears unmistakable witness to the existence within us of an abiding subject of our thoughts, feelings, and desires. In biology, the soul is revealed to us as a binding-principle, that obstructs dissolution of the organism, and a persistent type that maintains its identity amid an incessant flux of matter and flow of energy. Clearer still is testimony of introspective psychology, which reveals all our psychic activities and states as successive modifications of this permanent “I,” “self,” “personality,” or “mind,” according as we choose to express it. Human language proves this most forcibly; for the intramental facts and data of our conscious life simply cannot be so much as intelligibly expressed, much less, defined, or differentiated from the extramental facts of the physical world, without using terms that include a reference to this selfsame persistent subject of thought, feeling, and volition. Even inveterate phenomenalists, like Wundt, James, and Titchener, are obliged to submit to this inexorable linguistic law, in common with their unscientific brethren, the generality of mankind, although they do so only after futile attempts at a “scientific revision” of grammar, and with much grumbling over the “barbarous conceptions” of the gross-headed aborigines who invented human language. Be that as it may, no formulation of mental facts is possible except in terms that either denote or connote this permanent source and ground of human thought and feeling, as is apparent, for example, from such phrases as: “I think,” “I wish,” “I hear”; “mental states” (i. e. of the mind); psychic functions (i. e. of the psyche); subjective idealism (i. e. of the subject); a conscious act (from con-scire: “to know along with,” because in conscious acts the subject is known along with the object). The phenomenalists occasionally succeed, in their “most precise” passages, in omitting to mention the person, knower, or thinker behind thought, but they do so only at the cost of substituting personal pronouns, and of thus bringing back through the window what they have just ejected by way of the door. Our consciousness, therefore, makes us invincibly aware of the existence of a superficially variable, but radically unchangeable, subject of our mental life. It does not, however, tell us anything concerning the nature of this primary ground of thought, whether, for example, it is identical with the cerebral cortex, or something distinct therefrom, whether it is phenomenal or substantial, dynamic or entitive, spiritual or material. To decide these questions the unanalyzed factual data of internal experience do not suffice, but they do suffice to establish the reality of the ego or subject of thought. Later we shall see that the analysis of these data, when taken in conjunction with other facts, forces us to predicate of the soul such attributes as substantiality, simplicity, and spirituality, but here they are cited solely for their factual force and not for their logical implications.

The phenomenalistic schools of Interactionism and Psychophysical Parallelism deny the substantiality of the soul, and seek to resolve it into sourceless and subjectless processes. A phenomenal mind or soul, however, could not be the primary ground of mental life, for the simple reason that phenomena presuppose a supporting medium (otherwise they would be self-maintaining, and therefore, substantial). Now that which presupposes cannot be a primary principle, but only a secondary, or tertiary principle. Consequently, a functional mind could not be the primary and irreducible ground of mental life, but only that of which it is a function, whether that something is a material, or a spiritual substance. For the present, we are not interested in the nature of this ultimate substrate, we are content with the fact that it really exists. Phenomenalists (like Wundt, Paulsen, and James) are very inconsistent when they admit material molecules as the extended substrate of extramental or physical phenomena, while denying the existence of the mind or ego as the inextended substrate of intramental or psychic phenomena. All substance, whether material or spiritual, is inaccessible to the senses. Even material substrates are manifested only by their phenomena, being in themselves supersensible and “metaphysical.” If, then, the human understanding is inerrant in ascribing a material substrate to extramental phenomena, then it is equally inerrant in attributing to intramental phenomena the intimate substrate called mind, whether this substrate be a spiritual substance, or a material substance like the substrate of physical phenomena and that of organic life. As a matter of fact, the Psychophysical Parallelists actually do reduce mental phenomena to a material substrate (viz. the cerebral cortex). Their phenomenalism, which we will refute presently, is but a disingenuous attempt to gloss over their fundamental materialism. At all events, they are willing to admit an ultimate substantial ground of thought and volition, provided it is not claimed that this substrate is of a spiritual nature. The bare existence of some substrate, however, is all that we assert, for the present.

Before leaving this topic, we wish to call attention to the fact that the subject of thought and desire is active as well as passive. Mind, in other words, is not merely a persistent medium wherein passive mental states are maintained, but an active and synthetic principle as well. Mental processes, like those of judgment, reasoning, and recognition, require a unitary and unifying principle, which actively examines and compares our impressions and thoughts, in order to discern their relations to one another and to itself. Materialistic psychology, in spite of the plain testimony of consciousness, is all for ignoring the mind in its active rôle as the percipient of the identities and discrepancies of thought, and for regarding mind as a mere complex of mental states or transient flux of fleeting imagery. It is well, then, to bear in mind the indubitable facts of internal experience, to which Cardinal Mercier calls attention. “English psychology,” he observes, “had attempted a kind of anatomy of consciousness. It made all consist in passive sensations or impressions. These impressions came together, fused, dissociated under the guidance of certain laws, principally those of similarity and dissimilarity. The whole process was entirely passive without the intervention of any active subject. It was psychology without a soul. Now that things are being examined a little more closely, psychologists find that there are a lot of conscious states that are without the slightest doubt active on the part of the subject. There are a number of mental states upon which the subject brings his attention to bear, and attention (from ad-tendere) means activity. Ordinarily we do not know the intensity of a sensation without comparing it with another preceding one. This work of comparison, or, as the English call it, discrimination, is necessarily activity. The Associationists had confounded the fact of coëxistence with the perception of similarity or dissimilarity. Supposing even that the coëxistence of two mental states were entirely passive, it still remains true that the notion of their similarity or dissimilarity requires an act of perception. It is absolutely impossible to conceive psychical life without an active subject which perceives itself as living, notes the impressions it receives, compares its acts, associates and dissociates them; in a word, there can be no psychology without a perceiving subject which psychologists call esprit, or with the English, ‘mind.’” (Op. cit., pp. 52-54—italics his.)

The conflict between phenomenalism and the clear testimony of consciousness is summed up in the following words of T. Fontaine: “If all things are phenomena, then we ourselves can be nothing more than events unknown to one another; in order, then, that such events may appear to us united, so that we may be able to declare their succession within us, it is necessary that something else besides them should exist; and this something else, this link that binds them together, this principle that is conscious of their succession, can be nothing else than a non-event or non-phenomenon, namely, a substance, an ego substantially distinct from sensations.” (“La sensation et la pensée,” p. 23.)

For the phenomenalists, mind is but a collective term for the phenomenal series of our transitory thoughts and feelings. With Wundt, they discard the substantial or entitive soul for a dynamic or functional one, “die aktuelle Seele.” (Cf. Grundz. der Phys. Psych., ed. 5th, III, p. 758 et seq.) Thought antecedes itself by becoming its own thinker; for Titchener tells us: “The passing thought would seem to be the thinker.” (“Pr. of Psych.,” I, p. 342.) We do not think, but thought thinks; John does not walk, but walking walks; aeroplanes do not fly, but flight flies; air does not vibrate, but vibration vibrates. The phenomenalist objectivates his subjective abstractions, divorces processes from their agents, and substantializes phenomena. The source of his error is a confusion of the ideal, with the real, order of things. Because it is possible for us to consider a thought apart from any determinate thinker, by means of a mental abstraction, he very falsely concludes that it is possible for a thought to exist without a concrete thinker. It would be obviously absurd to suppose that the so-called Grignard reaction could occur without definite reactants, merely because we can think of it without specifying any particular kind of alkyl halide; it would be preposterous to infer, from the fact that vibration can be considered independently of any concrete medium such as air, water, or ether, that therefore a pure vibration can exist without any vibrating medium; and it is equally absurd to project an abstraction like subjectless thought into the realm of existent reality. Abstractions are ideal entities of the mind; they can have no real existence outside the domain of thought. Hence to assign a real or extralogical existence to actions, modalities, and properties, in isolation from the concrete subjects, to which they belong, is a procedure that is not legitimate in any other world than Alice’s Wonderland, where, we are told, the Cheshire Cat left behind his notorious grin long after his benign countenance had faded from view. His faceless grin is a fitting comment on the neo-Kantian folly of those who, as L. Chiesa says, “speak of phenomena without substance, of sensations without subject, of thoughts without the Ego, to which they belong, imitating in this way the poets, who personify honor, virtue, beauty, etc. Now all this proceeds exclusively from a confusion of the subjective abstraction with the reality, and from the assumption that the phenomenon, for example, exists without substance, because we are able (by means of abstraction) to consider the former independently of the latter.” (“La Base del Realismo,” p. 39.) In other words, the mind is capable of separating (representatively, of course, and not physically) its own phenomena from itself, but this is no warrant for transferring the abstractions thus formed from the ideal, to the real, order of things.

So much for the soul’s substantiality, but it is a simple, as well as a substantial, principle, that is to say, it is inextended, uncompounded, incorporeal, and not dispersed into quantitative parts or particles. In other words, it is not a composite of constituent elements or complex of integral parts, but something really distinct from the body and pertaining to a different order of reality than matter. This, as we have seen, does not necessarily mean that it is immaterial, in the sense of being intrinsically independent of matter. In a word, simplicity does not involve spirituality (absolute immateriality). Not only plant and animal souls, but even mineral entelechies, are simple, in the negative sense of excluding extension, corporeality and dispersal into quantitative parts, but they are, none the less, intrinsically dependent on matter and are therefore material principles.

That the soul or vital entelechy is really distinct from its material substrate is apparent from the perennial process of metabolism enacted in the living organism. In this process, matter is the variant and entelechy or specific type is the constant. Hence the two principles are not only distinct, but separable. Moreover, the soul’s rôle as a binding-principle that obstructs dissolution is incompatible with its dispersal into quantitative parts; for such a principle, far from being able to bind, would require binding itself, and could not, therefore, be the primary source of unification in the organism. Finally, the soul must be incorporeal; since, if it were a corporeal mass, it could not be “a formative power pervading the growing mass as a whole” (Wilson); for this would involve the penetration of one body by another. Consequently, the soul is a simple, inextended, incorporeal reality undispersed into quantitative parts.

Introspective psychology bears witness to the same truth; for consciousness reinforced by memory attests the substantial permanence of our personal identity. We both think and regulate our practical conduct in accordance with this sense of unchanging personal identity. All recognition of the past means simply this, that we perceive the substantial identity of our present, with our past, selves throughout all the experiences and vicissitudes of life. There is an inmost core of our being which is unchanging and which remains always identical with itself, in spite of the flow of thought and the metabolic changes of the life-cycle. It is this that gives us the sense of being always identically the same person, from infancy to maturity, and from maturity to old age. It is this that constitutes the thread of continuity which links our yesterdays with today, and makes us morally responsible for all the deliberate deeds of a lifetime. Courts of law do not acquit a criminal because he is in a different frame of mind from that which induced him to commit murder, nor do they excuse him on the score that metabolism has made him a different mass of flesh from that which perpetrated the crime. Such philosophies as phenomenalism and materialism are purely academic. Even their advocates dare not reduce them to consistent practice in everyday life.

Nor can the cases of alternating personalities be adduced as counterevidence. In the first place, these cases are psychopathic and not normal. In the second, they are due, not to a modification of personality itself, but to a modification in the perception of personality. Since this perception is, as we shall see, extrinsically dependent on cerebral imagery, any neuropathic affection is liable to modify the perception of personality by seriously disturbing the imagery, on which it depends. But (pace Wundt and James) the perception of personality is one thing, and personality itself quite another. Perception does not produce its objects, but presupposes them, and self-perception is no exception to this rule. Introspection, therefore, does not create our personality, but reveals and represents it. If then to the intuition of consciousness our personality appears as an unchanging principle that remains always substantially identical with itself, it follows that this perception must be terminated by something more durable than a flux of transient molecules or a stream of fleeting thought. Unless this perceptive act has for its object some unitary and uniformly persistent reality distinct from our composite, corruptible bodies, and not identified with our transitory thoughts, this sense of permanent personal identity would be utterly impossible. Materialism, which recognizes nothing more in man than a decaying organism, a mere vortex of fluent molecules, is at a loss to account for our consciousness of being always the same person. Phenomenalism, which identifies mind or self with the “thought-stream,” is equally impotent to account for this sense of our abiding sameness.

James’ attempt at a phenomenalistic explanation of the persistent continuity of self, on the assumption that each passing thought knows its receding predecessor and becomes known, in turn, by its successor, is puerile. To pass over other flaws, this absurd theory encounters an insuperable difficulty in sleep, which interrupts, for a considerable interval, the flow of conscious thought. Thought is a transient reality, which passes, so far as its actuality is concerned, and can only remain in the form of a permanent effect. Unless, therefore, there were some persistent medium in which the last waking thought could leave a permanent vestige of itself, the process of relaying the past could never be resumed, and we would lose our personal identity every twenty-four hours. The mind, or subject of thought, then, must be an abiding and unitary principle distinct from our composite bodies, and from our manifold and fleeting thoughts.

Finally, to the two foregoing attributes of the human soul (substantiality and simplicity), we must add a third and crowning attribute, namely, spirituality. It is this, and this alone, that differentiates the human from the bestial soul, which latter is but an incomplete complement of matter, incapable of existence apart from matter, and doomed to perish with the dissolution of the organism, as the cylindrical form of a candle perishes with the consumption of the wax by the flame.

All the psychic activities of the brute, such as sensation, object-perception, imagination, associative memory, sensual emotion, etc., are organic functions of the sensitivo-nervous type. In all of them the agent and recipient is not the soul alone, but the psycho-organic composite of soul and organism, that is, the soul-informed sensory and central neurons of the cerebrospinal system. The sensory neurons are nerve cells that transmit centerward the excitations of physical stimuli received by the external sense organs or receptors, in which their axon-fibers terminate. These receptors and sensory neurons are extended material organs proportioned and specialized for receiving physical impressions from external bodies, either directly through surface-contact with the bodies themselves or their derivative particles (e.g. in touch, taste and smell), or indirectly through surface-contact with an extended vibrant medium such as air, water, or ether (e.g. in hearing and sight). The central neurons of the cerebral cortex are, as it were, the tablets, upon which the excitations transmitted thither by the sensory neurons, record the extended neurograms that constitute the physical basis of the concrete imagery of memory and imagination. Interior senses, then, like memory and imagination, merely continue and combine what was preëxistent in the exterior senses. Their composite imagery is rigidly proportioned to the extended neurograms imprinted on the cerebral neurons, and these neurograms, in turn, are determined both qualitatively and quantitatively by the physical impressions received by the receptors, and these impressions, finally, are exactly proportioned to the action of the material stimuli in contact with the receptors. Thus the composite images of imagination as well as those of direct perception are proportioned to the underlying neurograms of the cortex and correspond exactly, as regards quality, intensity, and extensity, to the original stimulus affecting the external receptors. Hence men born blind can never imagine color, nor can men born deaf ever imagine sound. An inextended principle, such as the discarnate soul, cannot receive or record impressions from extended vibrant media, or from extended corporeal masses. For this the soul requires the intrinsic coöperation of material receptors. Now, the highest cognitive and appetitive functions of the brute (e.g. sense-perception and emotion) are, as has been stated, of the sensitivo-nervous or psycho-organic type, that is, they are functions in which the material organism intimately coöperates; brute animals give no indication of having so much as a single function, which proceeds from the soul alone and which is not communicated to the organism. Hence the bestial soul is “totally immersed” in matter; as regards both operation and existence, it is “intrinsically dependent” upon its material complement, the organism. It never operates save in conjunction with the latter, and its sole reason for existence is adequately summed up in saying that it exists, not for its own sake, but merely to vivify and sensitize the organism. Consequently, the brute soul, though inextended and incorporeal, belongs, not to the spiritual, but to the material, order of things.

Is the human soul equally material in nature, or does it belong to the spiritual category of being? The state of the question has long since been formulated for us by Aristotle: “A further difficulty,” he says, “arises as to whether all attributes of the soul are also shared by that which has the soul or whether any of them are peculiar to the soul itself: a problem which it is imperative, and yet by no means easy, to solve. It would appear that in most cases it neither acts nor is acted upon apart from the body: as, e.g., in anger, courage, desire, and sensation in general. Thought, if anything, would seem to be peculiar to the soul. Yet if thought is a sort of imagination, or something not independent of imagination, it will follow that not even thought is independent of the body. If, then, there be any functions or affections of the soul that are peculiar to it, it will be possible for the soul to be separated from the body: if, on the other hand, there is nothing peculiar to it, the soul will not be capable of separate existence.” (“Peri Psyches,” Bk. I, chap. I, 9.) We shall see that the human soul has certain operations which it discharges independently of the intrinsic coägency of the organism, e.g., abstract thought (not to be confounded with the concrete imagery of the imagination) and deliberate volition (to be distinguished from the urge of the sensual appetite). Hence, over and above the organic functions, which it discharges in conjunction with the material organism, the human soul has superorganic functions, of which it is itself, in its own right, the exclusive agent and recipient. In other words, it exists for its own sake and not merely to perfect the body.

The Aristotelian argument for the spirituality of the human soul consists in the application of a self-evident principle or axiom to certain facts of internal experience. The axiom in question is the following: “The nature of an agent is revealed by its action”; or, to phrase it somewhat differently: “Every being operates after the same manner that it exists.” The factual data, to which reference is made, are man’s higher psychic functions, in which the soul alone is the active cause and receptive subject, namely: the rational or superorganic functions of thinking and willing. The argument may be formulated thus: Every agent exists after the same manner that it operates. But in rational cognition and volition the soul acts without the co-agency of the material organism. Therefore the human soul can exist without the coexistence of the material organism. But this is tantamount to saying that it is a spiritual reality irreducible to matter and incapable of derivation from matter. For we define that as spiritual, which exists, or is, at least, capable of existing, without matter. Consequently, the human soul is a supermaterial and immortal principle, which does not need the body to maintain itself in existence, and can, on that account, survive the death and dissolution of its material complement, the organism. Such a reality, as we have seen, cannot be a product of evolution, but can only come into existence by way of creation.

The axiom, that activity is the expression or manifestation of the entity which underlies it, needs but little elucidation. In the genesis of human knowledge, the dynamic is prior to both the static and the entitive. We deduce the nature of the cause from the changes or effects that it produces. Action, in short, is the primary datum upon which our knowledge of being rests. It is the spectrum of solar light emitted by them, which enables us to determine the nature of the chemical elements present in the distant Sun. It is the reaction of an unknown compound with a test reagent that furnishes the chemist with a clue to its composition and structure. It is the special type of tissue degeneration caused by the specific toxin engendered by an invisible disease germ that enables the pathologists to identify the latter, etc., etc. So much for the axiom. Regarding the psychological facts, a more lengthy exposition is required. To begin with, there is prima facie evidence against the contention that the higher psychic functions in man are independent of the organism. Injury and degeneration of the cerebral cortex result (very often, at least) in insanity and idiocy. Reason, therefore, is in some way dependent upon the organism. Babies, too, are incapable of rational thought until such a time as the nervous system is fully developed. Obviously, then, rational functions cannot be spiritual, inasmuch as they are not independent of the organism.

This time-honored objection of materialists is based on a misapprehension. It falsely assumes that spirituality excludes every kind of dependence upon a material organism, and that our assertion of the soul’s independence of matter is an unqualified assertion. This, however, is far from being the case. It is only intrinsic (subjective), and not extrinsic (objective), independence of the organism which is here affirmed. An analogy from the sense of sight will serve to make clear the meaning of this distinction. In the act of seeing a tree, for example, our sight is dependent upon a twofold corporeal element, namely, the eye and the tree. It is dependent upon the eye as upon a corporeal element intrinsic to the visual sense, the eye being a constituent part of the agent and subject of vision; for it is not the soul alone which sees, but rather the soul-informed retina and neurons of the psycho-organic composite. The eye enters as an essential ingredient into the intimate constitution of the visual sense. It is a constituent part of the specific cause of vision, and it can therefore be said with perfect propriety that the eye sees. Such dependence upon a material element is called intrinsic or subjective dependence, and is utterly incompatible with spirituality on the part of that which is thus dependent. But the dependence of sight upon an external corporeal factor, like a tree or any other visible object, is of quite a different nature. Here the corporeal element is outside of the seeing subject and does not enter as an ingredient into the composition of the principal and specific agent of vision. True the tree, which is seen, is coïnstrumental as a provoking stimulus and an objective exemplar, but its concurrence is of an extrinsic nature, not to be confounded with the intrinsic co-agency of the eye in the act of vision. Hence, in no sense whatever can the tree be said to see; for the tree is merely an object, not the principal and specific cause, of vision. When the dependence of an agent upon a corporeal element is of this sort, it is termed extrinsic or objective dependence. Such dependence upon a material element is perfectly compatible with spirituality, which does, indeed, exclude all materiality from the specific agent and subject of a psychic act, but does not necessarily exclude materiality from the object contemplated in such an act. Hence the fact that the thinking soul must abstract its rational concepts from the concrete imagery of a cerebral sense, like the imagination, in no wise detracts from its spirituality, because the dependence of abstract thought upon such imagery is objective or extrinsic, and not subjective or intrinsic.

Psychologists of the sensationalist school have striven to obscure the fundamental distinction which exists between rational thought and the concomitant cerebral imagery. It is, however, far too manifest to escape attention, as the healthy reaction of the modern school of Würzburg indicates. “It cost me great resolution,” says Dr. F. E. Schultze, a member of this school, “to say, that, on the basis of immediate experiment, appearances and sensible apprehensions are not the only things that can be experienced. But finally I had to resign myself to my fate.” (“Beitrag zur Psychologie des Zeitbewusstseins,” p. 277.)

But thought is not only distinct from imagery, often there is marked contrast between the two, both as regards subjective, and objective, characters. Thus our thought may be perfectly clear, precise, and pertinent, while the accompanying imagery is obscure, fragmentary, and irrelevant. “What enters into consciousness so fragmentarily, so sporadically, so very accidentally as our mental images,” exclaims Karl Bühler (also of Würzburg), “can not be looked upon as the well-knitted, continuous content of our thinking.” (Archiv. für die ges. Psychol., 9, 1907, p. 317.) The same contrast exists with respect to their objective characters. Imagination represents by means of one and the same image what reason represents by means of two distinct concepts, e.g. an oasis and a mirage; and, vice versa, reason represents under the single general concept of a rose objects that imagination is forced to represent by means of two distinct images, e.g., a yellow, and a white rose. Imagery depicts only the superficial or exterior properties of an object, whereas thought penetrates beneath the phenomenal surface to interior properties and supersensible relationships. The sensory percept apprehends the existence of a fact, while the rational concept analyzes its nature. Hence sense-perception is concerned with the reality of existence, while thought is concerned with the reality of essence.

Certain American psychologists employ the term imageless thought to designate abstract concepts. The expression is liable to be misunderstood. It should not be construed as excluding all concomitance and concurrence of sensible imagery, in relation to the process of thought. What is really meant is that sensible appearances do not make up the sum-total of our internal experiences, but that we are also aware of mental acts and states which are not reducible to imagery. In other words, we experience thought; and thought and imagery, though concomitant, are not commensurable. The clarity and coherence of thought does not depend on the clarity or germaneness of the accompanying imagery, nor is it ever adequately translatable into terms of that imagery. Thus the universal triangle of geometry, which is not right, nor oblique, nor isosceles, neither scalene nor equilateral, neither large nor small, neither here nor there, neither now nor then, is not visualizable in terms of concrete imagery, although we are clearly conscious of its significance in geometrical demonstrations. Imagery differs according to the person, one man being a visualist, another an audist, another a tactualist, another a motor-verbalist, etc. But thought is the same in all, and consequently it is thought, and not imagery, which we convey by means of speech. Helen Keller, whose imagery is mainly motor and tactile, can exchange views with an audist or visualist on the subject of geometry, even though the amount of imagery which she has in common with such persons is negligible. “Eine Bedeutung,” says Bühler, “kann man überhaupt nicht vorstellen, sondern nur wissen,” and Binet, in the last sentence of his “L’Étude expérimentale de l’intelligence,” formulates the following conclusion: “Finally—and this is the main fact, fruitful in consequences for the philosophers—the entire logic of thought escapes our imagery.”

Nevertheless, thought does not originate in the total absence of imagery, but requires a minimal substrate of sensible images, upon which it is objectively, if not subjectively, dependent. The nature of this objective dependence is explained by the Scholastic theory concerning the origin of concepts. According to this theory, the genesis of our general and abstract knowledge is as follows: (1) We begin with sense-perception, say of boats differing in shape, size, color, material, location, etc. (2) Imagination and sense-memory retain the composite and concrete imagery synthesized or integrated from the impressions of the separate external senses and representing the boats in all their factual particularity, individuality, and materiality, as existent here and now, or there and then, as constructed of such and such material (e.g., of wood, or steel, or iron, or concrete), as having determinate sizes, shapes, and tonnages, as painted white, or gray, or green, as propelled by oar, or sail, or turbine, etc. (3) Then the active intellect exerts its abstractive influence upon this concrete imagery, accentuating the essential features which are common to all, and suppressing the individuating features which are peculiar to this or that boat, so that the essence of a boat may appear to the cognitive intellect without its concomitant individuation—the essence of a boat being, in this way, isolated from the peculiarities thereof and its various qualities from their subject (representatively, of course, and not physically). (4) The imagery thus predisposed, being no longer immersed in matter, but dematerialized by the dispositive action of the active intellect, becomes coïnstrumental with the latter in producing a determination in the cognitive intellect. (5) Upon receiving this determination, the cognitive intellect, which has hitherto been, as it were, a blank tablet with nothing written upon it, reacts to express the essence or nature of a boat by means of a spiritual representation or concept—the abstractive act of the active intellect is dispositive, inasmuch as it presents what is common to all the boats perceived without their differentiating peculiarities; the abstractive act of the cognitive intellect, however, is cognitive, inasmuch as it considers the essence of a boat without considering its individuation. Such is the abstractive process by which our general and abstract concepts are formed. From a comparison of two concepts of this sort the process of judgment arises, and from the comparison of two concepts with a third arises the process of mediate inference or reasoning. Volition, too, is consequent upon conception, and hence an act of the will (our rational appetite), such as the desire of sailing in a boat, entails the preëxistence of some conceptual knowledge of the nature of a boat. Volition, therefore, presupposes thought, and thought presupposes imagination, which supplies the sensible imagery that undergoes the aforesaid process of analysis or abstraction. Such imagery, however, is a function of the cerebral cortex, and, for this reason, the normal exercise of the imagination presupposes the cerebral cortex in a normal physiological condition; and anything that disturbs this normal condition of the cortex will directly disturb the imagery of the imagination, and therefore indirectly impede the normal exercise of conceptual thought, which is abstracted from such imagery. Hence it is clear that the activity of both the intellect and the will is objectively dependent upon the organic activity of the imagination, and, in consequence, indirectly dependent upon the physiological condition of the cerebral cortex, which is the organ of the imagination. Since, however, this dependence is objective rather than subjective, it does not, as we have seen, conflict with the spirituality of rational thought.

The nature of conceptual thought is such as to exclude the participation of matter as a constituent of its specific agent and receptive subject. The objects of a cerebral sense like the imagination are endowed with extension, color, shape, volume, mass, temperature, and other physical properties, in virtue of which they can set up vibrations in an extended medium or modify an extended organ by immediate physical contact. But, while imagination makes us conscious of objects capable of stimulating extended material organs, the objects, of which we are conscious in abstract thinking, are divested of all the sensible properties, extension, and specific energies, which would enable them to modify a material neuron, or produce a physical impression upon a material receptor of any kind whatever. Between an extended material receptor, like a sense-organ or a cerebral neuron, and the nondimensional, dematerialized object or content of an abstract thought, like science, heroism, or morality, there is no conceivable proportion. How can a material organ be affected by what is supersensible, unextended, imponderable, invisible, intangible, and uncircumscribed by the limitations of space and time? Extended receptors are necessary for picking up the vibrations of a tridimensional medium (like air or ether), and they are, likewise, essential for the reception of impressions produced by surface-contact with an exterior corporeal mass. In short, sensory neurons are needed to receive and transmit inward the quantitative and measurable excitations of the material stimuli of the external world, and central neurons are required as tablets upon which these incoming excitations may imprint extended neurograms, that are proportionate in intensity and extensity to the external stimulus apprehended, and that underlie and determine the concrete imagery (of which they are the physical basis). But when it comes to perceiving and representing the meaning of duty, truth, error, cause, effect, psychology, means, end, entity, logarithms, etc., our mind can derive no benefit from the coöperation of a material organ. In such thinking we are conscious of that which could not make an impression nor leave a record upon material receptors like neurons. To employ a material organ for the purpose of perceiving abstract essences and qualities would be as futile and pointless as an attempt to stop a nondimensional, unextended, intangible baseball with a catcher’s glove. Hence the services of material centers and receptors may be dispensed with, so far as rational thought is concerned. Rational thought cannot utilize the intrinsic coägency of the organism, and it is therefore a superorganic or spiritual function.

That conceptual thought is in no wise communicated to the organism, but subjected in the spiritual soul alone, is likewise apparent from the data furnished by introspection. The conceiving mind apprehends even material objects according to an abstract or spiritualized mode of representation. In other words, in conceiving material objects we expurgate them of their materiality and material conditions, endowing them with a dematerialized mode of mental existence which they could never have, if subjected in their own physical matter, or in the organized matter of the cerebral cortex. Thus, in forming our concept of a material object like a boat, we spiritualize the boat by separating (representatively, of course, and not physically) its nature or essence from the determinate matter (e.g., wood, or steel) of which it is made, and by divesting it of the material and concrete conditions which define not only its physical existence outside of us, but also its imaginal existence within us as a concrete image in our imagination. In other words, we isolate the type or form of a given object from its material substrate and liberate it from the limiting material and concrete individuation, which confine it to a single material subject and localize it definitely in space and time. Now, it is axiomatic that whatever is received is received according to the nature of the receiver. Water, for example, assumes the form of the receptacle into which it is poured, and a picture painted upon canvas is necessarily extended according to the extension of the canvas. If, therefore, our intellect endows even the material objects, which it perceives, with a dematerialized or spiritualized mode of representation, it follows that the intellect itself is a spiritual power and not an organic sense immersed in concretifying and individualizing matter. Certainly, this ideal or spiritualized mode of existence does not emanate from the material object without nor yet from its vicarious material image in our organic imagination (which, in point of fact, is absolutely impotent to imagine anything except concrete, singular things in all their determinate individuation and quantification). Thought, then, with its abstract mode of presentation, cannot, like imagery, be subjected in the animated or soul-informed cortex, but must have the spiritual mind alone as its receptive subject. Our abstract or dematerialized mode of conceiving material objects is a subjective character of thought, proceeding from, and manifesting, the spirituality of the human mind, which represents even material objects in a manner that accords with its own spiritual nature.

But it is not only in the process of abstraction, but also in that of reflection, that rational thought manifests its superorganic or spiritual character. The human mind knows that it knows and understands that it understands, thinks of its own thoughts and of itself as the agent and subject of its thinking. It is conscious of its own conscious acts, that is to say, it reflects upon itself and its own acts, becoming an object to itself. The thinking ego becomes an object of observation on the part of the thinking ego, which acquires self-knowledge by this process of reflective thought. In introspection, that which observes is identical with that which is observed. Now such a capacity of self-observation cannot reside in matter, cannot be spatially commensurate with a material organ nor inseparably attached thereto. It is possible only to an immaterial or spiritual principle, devoid of mass and extension, and not subject to the law of the impenetrability of matter. In virtue of the law of impenetrability, no two material particles, no two bodies, no two integral parts of the same body, can occupy one and the same place. One part of a body can, indeed, act on another part extrinsic to itself; but one and the same part or particle cannot act upon itself. To become at once observed and observer, a material organ would have to split itself in two, so that the part watched could be distinct from, and spatially external to, the part watching. The power of perfect reflection, therefore, must reside in the spiritual soul, and cannot be bound to, and coëxtensive with, a material organ. Only in this supposition can there be a return of the subject upon and into itself, only in this supposition can there be that identification of observed and observer implied by the process of reflection. H. Gründer, in his “Psychology without a Soul,” gives a graphic reductio ad absurdum of the contrary assumption: “A fairy tale,” he says, “tells of a knight who was beheaded by his victorious foe. But, strange to relate, the vanquished knight rose to his feet, seized his severed head and bore it off, as in triumph. The most remarkable part, however, of the story is that with a last effort of gallantry he took his own head, and—kissed its brow. The climax of this fairy tale is no more absurd than the assumption that a material organ can know itself and philosophize on itself. Only if we admit with the scholastics a simple soul intrinsically independent of any bodily organism, can we explain the possibility of perfect psychological reflexion.” (Cf. pp. 193, 194.)

For the rest the impossibility of introspection on the part of a material organ is so evident that the materialists themselves freely concede it, and being unwilling to admit the spirituality of the human intellect, they are forced to resort to the disingenuous expedient of denying the fact of reflection on the part of the human mind. “It is obvious,” says Auguste Comte, “that by an invincible necessity the human mind can observe directly all phenomena except its own. We understand that a man can observe himself as a moral agent, because in that case he can watch himself under the action of the passions which animate him, precisely because the organs that are the seat of those passions are distinct from those that are destined for the functions of observation.... But it is manifestly impossible to observe intellectual phenomena whilst they are being produced. The individual thinking cannot divide himself in two, so that one half may think and the other watch the process. Since the organ observing and the one to be observed are identical, there can be no self-observation.” (“Cours de philosophie positive,” lière leçon.) But an argument is of no avail against a fact, and, as a matter of fact, we do reflect. It is by introspection or reflective thought that we discriminate between our present and our past thoughts, and become conscious of our own consciousness. Our intellect even reflects upon its own act of reflection, and so on indefinitely, so that, unless we are prepared to accept the absurd alternative of an infinite series of thinkers, we have no choice but to identify the subject knowing with the subject known. That our intellect is conscious of its own operations and attentive to its own thoughts, is an evident fact of internal experience, and it is preposterous to tilt against facts by means of syllogisms. When Zeno concocted his aprioristic “proof” of the impossibility of translatory movement, his sophism was refuted by the simple process of walking—solvitur ambulando. In like manner, the Comtean sophism concerning the impossibility of reflection is refuted by the simple act of mental reflection—solvitur reflectendo. For the rest, we readily concede Comte’s contention that an organ is incapable of reflection or self-observation, but we deny his tacit assumption that our cognitive powers are all of the organic type. Our intellect, which attends to its own phenomena, thinks of its own thought and reasons upon its own reasoning, cannot be bound to, or coextensive with, a material organ, but must be free from any corporeal organ and rooted in a spiritual principle. In a word, reflective thought is a superorganic function expressing the spiritual nature of the human mind.

Another proof of the superorganic nature of the human intellect as compared with sentiency, both exterior and interior, is one adduced by Aristotle himself: “But that the impassivity of the sense,” he says, “is different from that of intellect is clear if we look at the sense organs and at sense. The sense loses its power to perceive, if the sensible object has been too intense; thus it cannot hear sound after very loud noises, and after too powerful colors or odors it can neither see nor smell. But the intellect, when it has been thinking on an object of intense thought, is not less, but even more, able to think of inferior objects. For sense-perception is not independent of the body, whereas the intellect is.” (“Peri Psyches,” Bk. III, Ch. iv, 5.)

This temporary incapacitation of the senses consequent upon powerful stimulation is a common experience embalmed in such popular expressions as “a deafening noise,” “a blinding flash,” “a dazzling light,” “a numbing pain,” etc. Weber’s law of the differential threshold tells us that the intensity of sensation does not increase in the same proportion as that of the stimulus. On the contrary, the more intense the previous stimulus has been, the greater must be the increment added to the subsequent stimulus before it can produce a perceptible increase in the intensity of sensation. In short, stimulation of the senses temporarily decreases their sensitivity with reference to supervening stimuli. The reason for this momentary loss of the power to react normally is evidently due to the organic nature of the senses. Their activity entails a definite and rigidly proportionate process of destructive metabolism in their bodily substrate, the organism. In other words, the exercise of sense-perception involves a commensurate process of decomposition in the neural tissue, which must afterwards be compensated by a corresponding assimilation of nutrient material, before the sense can again react with its pristine vigor. This process of recuperation requires time and temporarily inhibits the reactive power of the sense in question, the duration of this repair work being determined by the amount of neural decomposition caused by the reaction of the sense to the previous stimulus. When, therefore, a weaker stimulus supervenes in immediate succession to a stronger one, the sense is incapable of perceiving it. All organic activity, in short, such as sense-perception and imagination, is rigidly regulated by the metabolic law of waste and repair.

With the intellect, however, the case is quite different. The intellect is neither debilitated nor stupefied by the discovery of truths that are exceptionally profound, or unusually abstruse, or strikingly evident; nor is it temporarily incapacitated thereby from understanding simpler, easier, or less evident truths. On the contrary, the more comprehensive, the more penetrating, the more perspicuous, the more sublime our intellectual vision is, so much the more is our intellect invigorated and enthused in its pursuit of truth, and its knowledge of the highest truths renders it not less, but more, apt for the understanding of simple and ordinary truths. Obviously, then, the intellect is not bound to a corruptible organ like the senses, but has for its subject a spiritual principle that is intrinsically independent of the organism.

In opposition to this contention, it may be urged that a prolonged exercise of intellectual activity results in the condition commonly known as brain-fag. But this fatigue of the brain is not, as a matter of fact, the direct effect of intellectual activity; rather it is the direct effect of the activity of the imagination, and only indirectly the effect of intellectual thought. The intellect, as we have seen, requires a constant flow of associated and aptly coördinated imagery as the substrate of its contemplation. Now, the imagination, which supplies this imagery, is a cerebral sense, whose activity is directly proportionate to, and commensurate with, the metabolic processes at work in the cortical cells. Its exercise is directly dependent upon the energy released by the decomposition of the cerebral substance. Prolonged activity of the imagination, therefore, involves the destruction of a considerable amount of the cortical substance, and results in temporary incapacitation or paralysis of the imagination, which must then be compensated by a process of repair in the cortical neurons, before the imagination can resume its normal mode of functioning. Brain-fag, then, is due to the activity of the imagination rather than that of the intellect. That such is the case appears from the fact that after the initial exertion, which results from the imagination being forced to assemble an appropriate and systematized display of illustrative imagery as subject-matter for the contemplation of the intellect, the latter is henceforth enabled to proceed with ease along the path of a given science, its further progress being smooth and unhampered. Once the preliminary work imposed upon the imagination is finished, the sense of effort ceases and intellectual investigation and study may subsequently reach the highest degrees of concentration and intensity, without involving corresponding degrees of fatigue or depression on the part of the cerebral imagination, just as, conversely speaking, the activity of the cerebral imagination may reach degrees of intensity extreme enough to induce brain-fag in psychic operations wherein the concomitant intellectual activity is reduced to a minimum, e. g., in the task of memorizing a poem, or recitation. Here, in the all but complete absence of intellectual activity, the same fatigue results as that induced by a prolonged period of analytic study or investigation, in which imaginative activity and rational thinking are concomitant. The point to be noted, in this latter case, is that the intellect does not show the same dependence upon the physiological vicissitudes as the imagination. The imagery of our imagination, being rigidly correlated with the metabolic processes of waste and repair at work in the cerebral cortex, manifests correspondingly variable degrees of intensity and integrity, but the intensity of thought is not dependent upon this alternation of excitation and inhibition in the cortex. Hence, while the concomitant imagery is fitful, sporadic, and fragmentary, intellectual thought itself is steady, lucid, and continuous. The intensity of thought does not vary with the fluctuations of neural metabolism, and may reach a maximum without involving corresponding fatigue in the brain. The brain-fag, therefore, which results from study does not correspond to the height of our intellectual vision, but is due to the intensity of the concomitant imaginative process.

The intellect, therefore, is not subject to the metabolic laws which rigidly regulate organic functions like sense-perception and imagination. Man’s capacity for logical thought is frequently unaffected by the decline of the organism which sets in after maturity. All organic functions, however, such as sight, hearing, sense-memory, are impaired in exact proportion to the deterioration of the organism, which is the inevitable sequel of old age. The intellectual powers, on the contrary, remain unimpaired, so long as the cortex is sound enough to furnish the required minimum of imagery, upon which intellectual activity is objectively dependent. There are, in fact, many cases on record where men have remained perfectly sane and rational, despite the fact that notable portions of the cerebral cortex had been destroyed by accident or disease (e. g., tumors). Intellectual thought, therefore, is a superorganic function, having its source in a spiritual principle and not in a corruptible organ.

Such is the spiritualism of Aristotle. That this conception differs profoundly from the ultraspiritualism of Descartes, it is scarcely necessary to remark. The position assumed by the latter was always untenable, but it is now, more than ever, indefensible in the face of that overwhelming avalanche of facts whereby modern physiological psychology demonstrates the close interdependence and correlation existent between psychic and organic states. Such facts are exploited by materialists as arguments against spiritualism, though it is evident that they have force only against Cartesian spiritualism, and are bereft of all relevance with respect to Aristotelian spiritualism, which they leave utterly intact and unscathed. In the latter system, sense-perception, imagination, and emotion are acknowledged to be directly dependent on the organism. Again, spiritual functions like thinking and willing are regarded as objectively or extrinsically dependent upon the imagination, which, in turn, is directly dependent on a material organ, namely: the brain. Hence even the rational operations of the mind are indirectly dependent upon the cerebral cortex. The spiritualism of Aristotle, therefore, by reason of its doctrine concerning the direct dependence of the lower, and the indirect dependence of the higher, psychic functions upon the material organism, is able to absorb into its own system all the supposedly hostile facts amassed by Materialism, thereby rendering them futile and inconsequential as arguments against the spirituality of the human soul. In confronting this philosophy, the materialistic scientist finds himself disarmed and impotent, and it is not to be wondered at, that, after indulging in certain abusive epithets and a few cant phrases, such as “metaphysics” or “medieval” (invaluable words!), he prudently retires from the lists without venturing to so much as break a lance in defense of his favorite dogma, that nothing is spiritual, because all is matter. In this predicament, the Cartesian caricature proves a boon to the materialist, as furnishing him with the adversary he prefers, a man of straw, and enabling him to demonstrate his paltry tin-sword prowess. Of a truth, Descartes performed an inestimable service for these modern “assassins of the soul,” when he relieved them of the necessity of crossing swords with the hylomorphic dualism of Aristotle by the substitution of a far less formidable antagonist, namely, the psychophysical dualism of mind and matter.

The proofs advanced, in the previous pages, for the spirituality of the human soul are based upon the superorganic function of rational thought. A parallel series of arguments can be drawn from the superorganic function of rational volition. The cognitive intellect has for its necessary sequel the appetitive will, which may be defined as spiritual tendency inclining us toward that which the intellect apprehends as good. The objects of such volition are frequently abstract and immaterial ideals transcendent to the sphere of concrete and material goods, e. g., virtue, glory, religion, etc. The will of man, moreover, is free, in the sense that it can choose among various motives, and is not compelled to follow the line of least resistance, as is the electric current when passing through a shunt of steel and copper wire. Like the self-knowing intellect, the self-determining will is capable of reflective action, that is, it can will to will. Having its own actions within its own control, it is itself the principal cause of its own decisions, and thus becomes responsible for its conduct, wherever its choice has been conscious and deliberate. External actions, which escape the control of the will, and even internal actions of the will itself, which are indeliberate, are not free and do not entail responsibility. Our courts of law and our whole legal system rests on the recognition of man’s full responsibility for his deliberate voluntary acts. The distinction between premeditated murder, which is punished, and unpremeditated homicide, which is not, is purely moral, and not physical, depending for its validity upon the fact of human freedom. It is this exemption from physical determinism, that makes man a moral agent, subject to duties, amenable to moral suasion, and capable of merit or demerit. Finally, the will of man is insatiable, invincible, and inexhaustible. The aspirations of the will are boundless, whereas our animal appetites are easily cloyed by gratification. There is no freezing point for human courage. The animal or sensual appetites wear out and decline with old age, but virtue and will-power do not necessarily diminish with the gradual deterioration of the material organism. Willing, therefore, is a superorganic or spiritual function. Activity which is bound to a material organ cannot tend towards supersensible ideals, cannot escape physical determinism, cannot achieve the reflective feat of spurring itself to action, cannot avoid exhaustion, cannot elude rigid regulation by the laws of organic metabolism. For this reason, the brute, whose psychic functions are of the organic type exclusively, is destitute of freedom, morality, and responsibility. Deliberate volition, therefore, like conceptual thought, has its source and subject in man’s spiritual soul, and is not a function of the material organism.[12]

Two additional facts may be cited as bringing into strong relief the basic contrast existing between the higher or rational, and the lower or animal psychosis in man. The first is the occurrence of irreconcilable opposition or conflict. The imagination, for example, antagonizes the intellect by visualizing as an extended speck of chalk or charcoal the mathematical point, which the intellect conceives as destitute of extension and every other property except position. Similarly, the effort of our rational will to be faithful to duty and to uphold ideals is antagonized by the sensual impulses of the animal appetite, which seek immediate gratification at the expense of remote considerations that are higher. Such antagonism is incompatible with any identification of the warring factors, that is, of our rational, with our sentient, functions; for, wherever opposition is in evidence, there a fortiori a real distinction must be recognized. The understanding and the will, therefore, differ radically from sense and sensual appetite. The second significant fact is the domination exerted by reason and will over the cognitive and appetitive functions of the organic or sentient order. Our intellect criticizes, evaluates and corrects the data of sense-perception, it discriminates between objective percepts and illusions and hallucinations, it distinguishes dreams from realities, it associates and dissociates imagery for purposes of comparison, contrast, illustration, or analysis. Moreover, it not only shows its superiority to sense by supervising, revising, and appraising the data of sentient experience, but it manifests its discontent at the inaccuracy and limitation of sense by the invention and use of instrumentation (e. g. ear trumpets, spectacles, microscopes, telescopes, spectroscopes, polariscopes, periscopes, etc.) to remedy the defects or increase the range of sense-perception, etc. This phenomenon is without parallel among brute animals, and is a patent manifestation of the superiority of human psychology. In like manner, the will demonstrates its preeminence over the organic or animal appetite, by exerting supreme control over the passions and impulses of our lower nature. In fact, it is able to bridle and repress the impulses of sensuality even in the immediate presence of sensible stimuli that would irresistibly determine the brute to a gratification of its animal lusts; and it can force the struggling and reluctant flesh to undergo a crucifixion for supersensible motives that make no appeal to the beast. The understanding and the will, therefore, are essentially superior to the organic psychosis that they control, namely, the sentient consciousness and sensual appetite, which we share in common with the brute, but which, in the latter, give no evidence whatever of rational or moral control.

The spiritual mind of man represents an eminence to which evolving matter can never attain. This, then, is the hill that must needs be laid low, if the path of Darwinian materialism is to be a smooth one. There is, therefore, nothing very surprising in the fact that Darwin and his followers, from Huxley down to Robinson, have done all in their power to obscure and belittle the psychological differences between man and the brute. The objective of their strategy is twofold, namely, the brutalization of man and its converse, the humanization of the brute. The ascent will be easier to imagine, if man can be depressed, and the brute raised, to levels that are not far apart. To this end, the Darwinian zealots have, on the one hand, spared no pains to minimize the superiority and dignity of human reason by the dissemination of sensistic associationism, psychophysical parallelism, and various other forms of “psychology without a soul”; and they have striven, on the other hand, to exalt to the utmost the psychic powers of the brute by means of a crude and credulous anthropomorphism, which, for all its scientific pretensions, is quite indistinguishable from the naïveté of the author of “Black Beauty”[13] and the sentimentality of S. P. C. A. fanatics, vegetarians, anti-vivisectionists, etc. The first of these tendencies we have already discussed, the second remains to be considered.

When it comes to anthropomorphizing the brute, Darwin has not been outdistanced by the most reckless of his disciples. Three entire chapters of the “Descent of Man” are filled with this “vulgar psychology” (as Wundt so aptly styles it). It is the sum and substance of the entire fabric of argumentation, which he erects in support of his thesis that “the difference in mind between man and the higher animals is certainly one of degree and not of kind.” (Cf. op. cit., chs. III-V.) Haeckel, Huxley, and Clifford attained to equal proficiency in the sport. Subsequent philosophers parroted their bold metaphors and smart aphorisms, and the game went on merrily till the close of the century. Then a badly needed reaction set in under the auspices of Wundt, Lloyd Morgan, and Thorndike, who insisted on abandoning this naïve impressionism in favor of more critical methods.

In his “Vorlesungen über die Menschen und Tierseele” (cf. 2nd ed., p. 370), Wundt proclaims his rupture with the impressionistic school in the following terms: “The one great defect of this popular psychology is that it does not take mental processes for what they show themselves to be to a direct and unprejudiced view, but imports into them the reflections of the observer about them. The necessary consequence for animal psychology is that the mental actions of animals, from the lowest to the highest, are interpreted as acts of the understanding. If any vital manifestation of the organism is capable of possible derivation from a series of reflections and inferences, that is taken as sufficient proof that these reflections and inferences actually led up to it. And, indeed, in the absence of a careful analysis of our subjective perceptions we can hardly avoid this conclusion. Logical reflection is the logical process most familiar to us, because we discover its presence when we think about any object whatsoever. So that for popular psychology mental life in general is dissolved in the medium of logical reflection. The question whether there are not perhaps other mental processes of a simpler nature is not asked at all, for the one reason that whenever self-observation is required, it discovers this reflective process in the human consciousness. The same idea is applied to feelings, impulses, and voluntary actions which are regarded, if not as acts of intelligence, still as effective states which belong to the intellectual sphere.

“This mistake, then, springs from ignorance of exact psychological methods. It is unfortunately rendered worse by the inclination of animal psychologists to see the intellectual achievements of animals in the most brilliant light.... Unbridled by scientific criticism the imagination of the observer ascribes phænomena in perfectly good faith to motives which are entirely of its own invention. The facts reported may be wholly true; the interpretation of the psychologist, innocently woven in with his account of them, puts them from first to last in a totally wrong light. You will find a proof of this on nearly every page of the works on animal psychology.” (English Translation by Creighton & Titchener, p. 341.)

Wundt’s warning against taking at their face value popular, or even so-called scientific, accounts of wonderful feats performed by animals is very salutary. The danger of subjective humanization of bestial conduct is always imminent. We are unavoidably obliged to employ the analogy of our own animal nature and sentient consciousness as our principal clue to an understanding of brute psychology, but we must beware of pressing this analogy based on our own consciousness to the uncritical extreme of interpreting in terms of our highest psychic operations animal behavior that, in itself, admits of a far simpler explanation. According to the principle of the minimum, it is unscientific to assume in a given agent the presence of anything that is not rigidly required for the explanation of its observed phenomena. We must refrain, therefore, from reading into the consciousness of an animal what is not really there. We must abstain from transporting our own viewpoint and personality into a brute, by imagining, with Darwin, that we discern a “sense of humor,” or a “high degree of self-complacency” in some pet animal, like a dog. In general, we can rest assured that animals are quite innocent of the motivation we ascribe to them. All their manifestations of the psychic order are adequately explicable in terms of sensory experience, associative memory, instinct, and the various automatisms of their innate and conditioned reflexes. There is no ground whatever for supposing the brute to possess the superorganic power of understanding commonly known as intelligence.

Etymologically speaking, the abstract term “intelligence,” together with the corresponding concrete term “intellect,” is derived from the Latin: intus-legere, signifying to “read within,” the fitness of the term being based upon the fact that the intellect can penetrate beneath the outer appearances of things to inner aspects and relations, which are hidden from the senses. In its proper and most general usage, intelligence denotes a cognoscitive power of abstraction and generalization, which, by means of conceptual comparison, discovers the supersensible relationships existent between the realities conceived, in such wise as to apprehend substances beneath phenomena, causes behind effects, and remote ends beyond proximate means.

Certain animal psychologists, however, refuse to reserve the prerogative of intelligence for man. Bouvier’s “La Vie Psychique des Insectes” (1918), for example, contains the following statement: “Choice of a remarkably intellectual nature, is even more noticeable in the instinctive manifestations of individual memory. The animal, endowed with well-developed senses and nervous system, not only reacts to new necessities by new acts, but associates the stored up impressions of new sensations and thereby appropriately directs its further activities. Thus, by an intelligent process, new habits are established, which by heredity become part of the patrimony of instinct, modifying the latter and constituting elements essential to its evolution. Of these instincts acquired through an intelligent apprenticeship Forel was led to say that they are reasoning made automatic, and it is to them particularly that we may apply the idea of certain biologists that instincts are habits which have become hereditary and automatic.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1918, p. 454.)

It is extremely doubtful, however, whether Bouvier is here using the term intelligence in its proper sense. Indeed, his words convey the impression that what he means by intelligence is an ability to profit by experience. Now, ability to profit by experience may, under one set of circumstances, involve the power of logical reflection and inference, while, under another set of circumstances, it may imply nothing more than the power of associative memory. In the latter case, the facts are explicable without any recourse to psychic powers of a superorganic nature, and, in point of fact, it often happens that the very zoöpsychologists, who insist on attributing this sort of “intelligence” to brutes, are most emphatic in denying that brutes are endowed with reason. In any case, it is unfortunate that the word intelligence is now used in two entirely different senses. This new and improper sense, being unrelated to the etymology, and out of harmony with the accepted use of the term, serves only to engender a confusion of ideas. It should be suppressed, in order to avoid misunderstandings.

That men should be deluded, however, into crediting animals with “intelligence” (properly so-called) is not at all surprising, when we reflect on the source of this misapprehension; for we find combined in the animal two important factors, whose association closely simulates intelligence, namely, sentient consciousness and unconscious teleology. Now teleology is not inherent or subjective intelligence, but rather an objective expression and product of intelligence. It exists in unconscious mechanisms like phonographs and adding machines, and it is, likewise, manifest in unconscious organisms like plants. Here, however, there is no danger of confounding it with conscious intelligence, because machines and plants do not possess consciousness in any form whatever. But in animals, on the contrary, teleology is intimately associated with sentient consciousness. Here the teleological automatisms of instinct are not wholly blind and mechanical, but are guided by sense-perception and associative memory. It is this combination of teleology with sentient “discernment” (as Fabre styles it) that conveys the illusory impression of a conscious intelligence. Careful analysis, however, of the facts, in conjunction with judicious experiments, will, in every instance, enable the observer to distinguish between this deceptive semblance of intelligence and that inherent rational power of abstraction, classification, and inference which is the unique prerogative of the human being. A genuine intelligence of this sort need not be invoked to explain any of the phenomena of brute psychology. All of them, from the highest to the lowest, are explicable in terms of the sensitivo-nervous functions. To illustrate the truth of this statement let us cite a few typical examples of animal behavior, that are sometimes regarded as manifestations of intelligent or rational consciousness on the part of the brute.

Animals, it is pointed out, learn by experience. The tiny chick that has been stung by a wasp, for instance, learns to avoid such noxious creatures for the future. This is, indeed, “learning by experience.” Obviously, however, it does not consist in an inference of a new truth from an old truth. On the contrary, it amounts to nothing more than a mere association of imagery, formed in accordance with the law of contiguity in time, sanctioned by the animal’s sensual appetite, and persistently conserved in its sentient memory. A bond of association is formed between the visual image of the wasp and the immediately ensuing sensation of pain. Thereafter the wasp and the pain are associated in a single complex, which the sensile memory of the animal permanently retains. We are dealing with a mere association of contiguity, and nothing further is required to explain the future avoidance of wasps by the chick. The abilities acquired by animals through the trial and error method are to be explained in the same way. A horse confined within an enclosure, for example, seeks egress to the fresh grass of the pasture. The fact that repeated exits through the gate of the enclosure have associated the image of its own access to the pasture with the particular spot where the gate is located induces it to approach the gate. Its quest, however, is balked by the fact that the gate is closed and latched. Thereupon, it begins to chafe under the urge of frustrated appetite. Certain actions ensue, some spontaneous and others merely reflex movements. It paws the ground, prances about, and rubs its nose against the gate. Its futile efforts to pass through the closed gate continue indefinitely and aimlessly, until, by some lucky accident, its nose happens to strike against the latch and lift it sufficiently to release the gate. This causes the gate to swing ajar, and the horse rushes out to food and freedom. By the law of contiguity, the vision of free egress through the gate is thereafter firmly associated in the horse’s sense-memory with the final sensation experienced in its nose just prior to the advent of the agreeable eventuation of its prolonged efforts. Henceforth the animal will be able to release itself from the enclosure by repeating the concatenated series of acts that memory associates with the pleasurable result. On the second occasion, however, the more remote of its futile acts will have been forgotten, and the process of opening the gate will occupy less time, though probably a certain amount of useless pawing and rubbing will still persist. Gradually, however, the number of inefficacious actions will diminish, until, after many repetitions of the experience, only those actions which directly issue in the desirable result will remain in the chain of impressions retained by memory, all others being eliminated. For, by a teleological law, making for economy of effort, all impressions not immediately and constantly connected with the gratification of animal appetites tend to be inhibited. Pawlow’s experiments on dogs show that impressions which coincide in time with such gratification tend to be recalled by a return of the appetitive impulse, but are soon disconnected from such association and inhibited, if they recur independently of the recurrence of gratification. For this reason, the horse tends to remember more vividly those actions which are more closely connected with the pleasurable result, and, as its superfluous actions are gradually suppressed by a protective process of inhibition, it gradually comes to run through the series of actions necessary to open the gate with considerable accuracy and dispatch.

The point to be noted, however, is that the horse does not discursively analyze this concatenated series of associated stimulators and actions; for, let the concrete circumstances be changed never so little, the horse will at once lose its laboriously acquired ability to open the gate. Such, for example, will be the result, if the position of the gate be transferred to another part of the enclosure. The horse, therefore, is incapable of adapting its acquired ability to new conditions. It can only rehearse the original series in all its initial concreteness and stereotyped specificity; and it must, whenever the circumstances are changed, begin once more at the beginning, and rearrive by trial and error at its former solution of the problem. The reason is that the horse merely senses, but does not understand, its own solution of the problem. The sense, however, cannot abstract from the here and now. Consequently, the human infant of two summers is enabled by its dawning intelligence to adapt old means to new ends, but the ten-year-old horse cannot adjust its abilities to the slightest change in the concrete conditions surrounding the original acquisition of a useful habit. The cognitive powers of an animal are confined to the sphere of concrete singularity, it has no power to abstract or generalize.

The selfsame observation applies to the tricks which animals “learn” through human training. Their sensitive memory is very receptive and retentive. Hence, by means of a judicious alternation of “rewards” and “penalties” (e.g. of sugar and the whip), a man can, as it were, inscribe his own thoughts on the tablets of the brute’s memory, in such a way as to force the latter to form habits that appear to rest upon a basis of intelligence. And so, indeed, they do, but the intelligence is that of the trainer and not that of the animal, which is as destitute of intrinsic intelligence as is a talking phonograph, upon whose records a man can inscribe his thoughts far more efficiently than he can write them in terms of the neurographic imagery of the canine, equine, or simian memory.

The trained monkey always renders back without change the original lesson imparted by its human trainer. The lesson as first received becomes an immutable reaction-basis for the future. With a school child, however, the case is quite different. It does, indeed, receive “an historical basis of reaction,” when the teacher illustrates the process of multiplication by means of an example on the blackboard. But it does not receive this information passively and render it back in the original stereotyped form. On the contrary, it analyzes the information received, and is able thereafter to reapply the analyzed information to new problems differing in specificity from the problem that the teacher originally worked out on the blackboard. The human pupil does not, like the monkey or the phonograph, render back what it has received in unaltered specificity. His reaction differs from its original passive basis. To borrow the words of Driesch, he “uses this basis, but he is not bound to it as it is. He dissolves the combined specificities that have created the basis.” (“The Problem of Individuality,” pp. 27, 28.) The brute, therefore, cannot “learn,” or “be taught” in the sense of intellectual comprehension and enlightenment. “We see,” says John Burroughs somewhere, “that the caged bird or beast does not reason because no strength of bar or wall can convince it that it cannot escape. It cannot be convinced because it has no faculties that are convinced by evidence. It continues to dash itself against the bars not until it is convinced, but until it is exhausted. Then slowly a new habit is formed, the cage habit. When we train an animal to do stunts, we do not teach it or enlighten it in any proper sense, but we compel it to form new habits.”

Human beings, however, can be taught and enlightened under the most adverse circumstances. Even those unfortunates are susceptible to it, who, like Laura Bridgman, Helen Keller, Martha Obrecht, Marie Heurtin, and others, have been blind and deaf and dumb from infancy or birth. With nearly all the light of sensibility extinguished, there was, nevertheless, latent within them something of which a perfectly normal ape, for all the integrity of its senses, is essentially destitute, namely, the superorganic power of reason. Reason, however, is extrinsically dependent on organic sensibility, and, consequently, “the gates of their souls” were closed to human converse, until such a time as the patient kindness and ingenuity of their educators devised means of reciprocal communication on a basis of tactile signals. Thereupon they revealed an intelligence perfectly akin to that of their rescuers. Years of similar education, however, would be futile in the case of an ape. The “gates of the soul” would never open, because the ape has no rational soul, to which the most ingenious trainer might gain access, in which respect it differs fundamentally from even the lowest savage. A being that lacks reason may be trained by means of instruction, but it can never be enlightened by it.

Another consideration, that is occasionally urged in proof of bestial intelligence, is the fact that birds, mammals, and even insects communicate with one another by means of sounds or equivalent signals, which are sometimes remarkably diversified in quality and consequent efficacy. “Since fowls,” writes Darwin, “give distinct warnings for danger on the ground, or in the sky, from hawks ..., may not some unusually wise ape-like animal have imitated the growl of a beast of prey, and thus told his fellow monkeys the nature of the expected danger? This would have been a first step in the formation of a language.” (“Descent of Man,” 2nd ed., ch. III, pp. 122, 123.) This is saltatory logic with a vengeance! Darwin leaps at one bound across the entire chasm between irrationality and rationality, without pausing to build even the semblance of a bridge. Given an animal with the foresight and inventiveness requisite to employ onomatopœia for the purpose of specifying the nature of an expected danger, in the interest of its fellows, and we need not trouble ourselves further about plausibleizing any transition; for so “unusually wise” an ape is already well across the gap that separates reason from unreason, and far on its way towards the performance of all the feats of which reason is capable. After swallowing the camel of so much progress, it would be straining at a gnat to deny such a paragon of simian genius the mere power of articulate speech. Of course, if imagination rather than logic, is to be the dominant consideration in science, there is no difficulty in imagining animals to be capable of thinking or doing anything we choose to ascribe to them, as witness Æsop’s Fables. But, if sober and critical judgment be in order, then, evidently, from the simple fact that an animal has diversified cries manifestative of different emotions or degrees of emotion (e.g. of fear or rage) and capable of arousing similar emotions in other animals of the same species, it by no means follows that such an irrational animal can adapt a means to an end by using mimicry in order to give notification of approaching danger, and to specify the nature of the danger in question.

This stupid anthropomorphism arises from Darwin’s failure to appreciate the fundamental distinction that exists between the “language” of animals, which is indicative, emotional, and inarticulate, and human language, which is descriptive, conceptual, and articulate. Brute animals, under the stress of a determinate passion or emotion, give vent impulsively and unpremeditatedly to instinctive cries indicative of their peculiar emotional state. Moreover, these emotionalized sounds are capable of arousing kindred emotions in the breasts of other animals of the same species, since organisms of the same species are syntonic with (i.e. attuned to) one another. Hence these reflex or instinctive cries have, no doubt, a teleological value, inasmuch as they serve to protect the race by inciting a peculiar flight-reaction in those that are not in immediate contact with the fear-inspiring object. This so-called warning, however, is given without reflection or intention on the part of the frightened animal, and is simply sensed, but not interpreted, by the other animals that receive it.

This premised, it is easy to discriminate between bestial and human language. The former is not articulate, that is to say, the sounds of which it is composed have not been elaborated by analysis and synthesis into phonetic elements and grammatical forms. In the second place, it is emotional and not conceptual, because it is manifestative of the emotions or passions (which are functions of the organic or sensual appetite), and not of rational concepts. In the third place, it is indicative, that is, it merely signalizes a determinate emotional state, as a thermometer indicates the temperature, or a barometer the atmospheric pressure. It is not, therefore, descriptive, in the sense of being selected and arranged in syntactic sequence for the express purpose of making others realize one’s own experiences. The rational language of man, on the contrary, is not emotional. Only a negligible portion of the human vocabulary is made up of emotional interjections. It consists, for the most part, of sounds descriptive of thought, to express which an elaborate system of vowels and consonants are discriminated and articulated on the basis of social agreement, the result being a conventional vocal code invented and used for the express purpose of conveying, not emotions or imagery, but general and abstract concepts.

A third class of facts commonly cited as evidence of bestial intelligence are the remarkable phenomena of instinct.[14] The beaver acts as though it were acquainted with the principles of hydraulics and engineering, when it maintains the water at the height requisite to submerge the entrance to its dwelling by building a dam of mud, logs, and sticks across the stream at a point below the site of its habitation. The predatory wasp Pompilius is endowed with surgical art, that suggests a knowledge of anatomy, inasmuch as it first disarms and afterwards paralyzes its formidable prey, the Lycosa or black Tarantula. Another predatory wasp, the Stizus ruficornis, disables Mantids in a similar fashion. One of the American Pompilids, the black wasp Priocnemis flavicornis, is an adept in the art of navigation, since it adopts the principle of the French hydroglissia (an air-driven boat which skims the water under the propulsion of an aeroplane propeller). This insect tows a huge black spider several times its own size and too heavy to be carried, propelling its prey with buzzing wings along the open waterway, and leaving behind a miniature wake like that of a steamer. It thus avoids the obstacles of the dense vegetation, and saves time and energy in transporting the huge carcass of its paralyzed quarry to the haven of its distant burrow. Spiders like the Epeira, for example, are endowed with the mathematical ability of constructing their webs on the patterns of the logarithmic spiral of Jacques Bernouilli (1654-1705), a curve which it took man centuries to discover. The dog infested with parasitic tapeworms (Taenia) evinces a seeming knowledge of pharmaceutics, seeing that it will avidly devour Common Wormwood (Artemisia absynthium), an herb which it never touches otherwise.

In all these cases, however, as we have previously remarked, the illusion of intelligence is due to the combination of teleology or objective purposiveness with sentient consciousness. But teleology is nothing more than a material expression of intelligence, not to be confounded with subjective intelligence, which is its causal principle. When the cells of the iris of the eye of a larval salamander regenerate the lens in its typical perfection, after the latter has been experimentally destroyed, we behold a process that is objectively, but not subjectively, intelligent. In like manner the instinctive acts of an animal are teleological or objectively purposive, but do not proceed from an intelligence inherent in the animal, any more than the intelligent soliloquy delivered by a phonograph proceeds from a conscious intelligence inherent in the disc. In the animal, sentient consciousness is associated with this teleology or objective purposiveness, but such consciousness is only aware of what can be sensed, and is, therefore, unconscious of purpose, that is, of the supersensible link, which connects a means with an end. “Instinct,” to cite the words of Wm. James, “is usually defined as the faculty of acting in such a way as to produce certain ends, without foresight of the ends, and without previous education in the performance.” (“Principles of Psychology,” vol. II, c. xxiv, p. 383.) Hence the unconscious and objective purposiveness, which the human mind discerns in the instinctive behavior of brutes, is manifestative, not of an intelligence within the animal itself, but only of the infinite intelligence of the First Cause or Creator, Who imposed these laws replete with wisdom upon the animal kingdom, and of the finite intelligence of man, who is capable of recognizing the Divine purpose expressed, not only in the instincts of animals, but in all the telic phenomena of nature. Such marvels are not the fortuitous result of uncoördinated contingencies. Behind these correlated teleologies of the visible universe there is a Supreme Intelligence, which has “ordered all things in measure, and number, and weight.” (Wisdom: XI, 21.) “And this universal geometry,” says Fabre, in allusion to the mathematics of the Epeira’s web, “tells of an Universal Geometrician, whose divine compass has measured all things. I prefer that, as an explanation of the logarithmic curve of the Ammonite and the Epeira, to the Worm screwing up the tip of its tail. It may not perhaps be in accordance with latter-day teaching, but it takes a loftier flight.” (“Life of the Spider,” p. 400.)

But, though the teleology of instinct is wonderful in the extreme, the element of psychic regulation is so subordinate and restricted, that, far from postulating intelligent control, certain scientists go so far as to deny even sentient control, in the case of instinctive behavior. Animals, in their opinion, are nothing more than “reflex machines,” a view which coincides with that of Descartes, who regarded animals as unconscious automatons. “The instincts,” says Pawlow, “are also reflexes but more complex.” (Science, Nov. 9, 1923, p. 359.) The late Jacques Loeb was a protagonist of the view that instincts are simply metachronic chain-reflexes, in which one elementary process releases another, each preceding phase terminating in the production of the succeeding phase, until the entire gamut of concatenated arcs has been traversed. Hence, John B. Watson, the Behaviorist disciple of Loeb, defines instinct as “a combination of congenital responses unfolding serially under appropriate stimulation.”

But, if Darwinian anthropomorphism sins by excess, Loeb’s mechanism sins by defect, and fails to account for the indubitable variability of instinctive behavior. For, however fixed and stereotyped such behavior may be, it manifests unmistakable adaptation to external circumstances and emergencies, as well as subordination to the general physiological condition of the organism, phenomena that exclude the idea of fatal predetermination according to the fixed pattern of a determinate series of reflex arcs. As Jennings has shown, synaptic coördination in the neural mechanism cannot be more than a partial factor in determining serial responses. The state of the organism as a whole must also be taken into account. (Cf. “Behavior of the Lower Organisms,” p. 251.) Thus an earthworm may turn to the right simply because it has just turned to the left, but this so-called “chain-reflex” does not involve an invariable and inevitable sequence of events, since the earthworm may turn twice or thrice to the left, before the second reaction of turning to the right comes into play. Any animal, when sated, will react differently to a food stimulus than it will when it is starved, by reason of its altered organic condition. We have something more, therefore, to reckon with than a mere system of reflexes released by a simple physical stimulus.

The second type of variability manifested by instinct is its capacity for complex and continuous adjustment to variable environmental circumstances. Thus predatory animals, such as wasps, crabs, spiders, and carnivorous mammals, accommodate themselves appropriately and uninterruptedly to the changing and unforeseeable movements of the prey they are engaged in stalking, giving evidence in this way of the regulation of their hunting instincts by sensory impressions. Whether this element of psychic control is based upon object-perception, or simple sensation, and whether it involves a sensual impulse, or is merely sensori-motor, we have, naturally, no direct means of ascertaining. But the presence of some sort of sensory regulation is evident enough, e.g. in the prompt and unerring flight of vultures to distant carrion. Moreover, there is a close analogy between our sense organs and those of an animal. Particularly, in the case of the higher animals, the resemblance of the sense organs and nervous system to our own is extremely close, so much so that even the localization of sensory and motor centers in the brain is practically identical in dogs, apes, and men. Moreover, the animals make analogous use of their sense organs, orientating them and accommodating them for perception, and using them to inspect strange objects, etc., e.g. they turn their eyes, prick up their ears, snuff the wind, etc. Again, analogous motor and emotional effects result from the stimulation of their sense organs, and brutes make emotional displays of anger, exultation, fear, etc., similar to our own. Hence it is to be presumed that they have similar sensuous experiences. The analogy, however, must not be pressed further than the external manifestations warrant. With brute animals, the manifestations in question are confined exclusively to phenomena of the sensuous order.

Another indication of sensory control is found in the repair-work performed by animals endowed with the constructive instinct. C. F. Schroeder, for instance, experimenting on certain caterpillars, found that they repaired their weaving, whenever it was disturbed by the experimenter. Fabre, too, discovered that a Mason-bee would plaster up holes or clefts marring the integrity of its cell, provided that the bee was actually engaged in the process of plastering at the time, and provided that the experimenter inflicted the damage at the level, and within the area, of the construction work on which the bee was then engaged. In a word, if the damage inflicted could be repaired by a simple continuation or extension of its actual work of the moment, the bee was able to cope with the emergency. There are other ways, too, in which the animal adapts its constructive instincts to external circumstance. Fabre tells us that the Bramble-bee Osmia, which builds a train of partitioned cells in snail shells or in hollow reeds, will victual first and then plaster in a partition, if the reed be narrow, but will first plaster a partition, and then introduce honey and pollen through a hole left unclosed in the partition, whenever the reed is of greater diameter. This reversal of the procedure according to the exigencies of the external situation does not suggest the chain-reflex of Loeb. (Cf. “The Bramble-Bee,” pp. 214-217.) Another kind of adaptation of instinct to external circumstances consists in the economical omission of the initial step of a serial construction, in cases where the environmental conditions provide a ready-made equivalent. “The silkworm,” says Driesch, “is said not to form its web of silk if it is cultivated in a box containing tulle, and some species of bees which normally construct tunnels do not do so if they find one ready made in the ground, they then only perform their second instinctive act: separating the tunnel into single cells.” (“Science & Phil. of the Organism,” vol. II, p. 47.)

Driesch’s analysis of the constructive instinct shows that these facts of adaptation or regulation fit in with the idea of sensory control rather than with that of a chain-reflex. In the supposition that the successive stages of instinctive construction are due to a chain-reflex, consisting of a series of elementary motor reactions a, b, c, etc., in which a produces the external work A and, on terminating, releases b, which, in turn, produces external work B and releases c, etc., clearly b could never appear before a, and the sight of A ready-made would not inhibit a, nor would the removal of A defer the advent of b. In other words, regulation would be impossible. But, if we suppose that not the elemental act a, but rather the sensory perception of A, the first state of the external construction, is the stimulus to b and, consequently, to the production of the second state of construction B, then we understand why b is released independently of a, when, for example, an insect discovers a ready-made substitute for A, the initial step in its construction, and we also understand why, in cases of accidental damage resulting in the total or partial removal of A, the reaction b is deferred and the reaction a prolonged, until the repair or reconstruction of A is complete; for, in this supposition, the addition of A will inhibit a and release b, whereas the subtraction of A will inhibit the appearance of b and consequently defer B, until the state of construction A, the sight of which is the stimulus to b, is complete. The fact of regulation, therefore, entails sensory control of the serial responses involved in the constructive instinct. Hence, as H. P. Weld of Cornell expresses it: “We may safely assume that even in the lowest forms of animal life some sort of sensory experience releases the (instinctive) disposition and to an extent determines the subsequent course of action.” (Encycl. Am., v. 15, p. 168.)

But it would be going to the opposite extreme to interpret these adjustments of instinct to external contingencies as evidence of intelligent regulation. The animal’s ability, for example, to repair accidental damage to a construction, which instinct impels it to build, is rigidly limited to repairs that can be accomplished by a simple continuation of the actual and normal occupation of the moment. If, however, the damage affects an already completed portion of the instinctive structure, and its present occupation is capable of continuance, the animal is impotent to relinquish this actual occupation of the moment, in order to cope with the emergency. Suppose, for illustration, that the instinctive operations a and b are finished and the animal is in the c-stage of its instinctive performance, then, if the damage is inflicted in the A-portion of the structure, and c can be continued independently of A, the animal cannot relinquish c and return to a, in order to restore the marred integrity of A. This shows that the animal is guided, in its repair-work, by sense, which is bound to the here and now, and not by intelligence, which is an abstractive faculty that emancipates from the actual and concrete present, and enables the possessor to hark back to the past of its performance, should necessity require. Thus Fabre found that the Mason-bee, after it had turned from building to the foraging of honey and pollen, would no longer repair holes pricked in its cell, but suffered the latter to become a veritable vessel of the Danaïdes, which it vainly strove to fill with its liquid provender. Though the holes affected portions extremely close to the topmost layer of masonry, and although it frequently sounded and explored these unaccustomed holes with its antennæ, it took no steps to check the escape of the honey and pollen by recurring to its mason craft of earlier stages. And, finally, when it did resume the plasterer’s trade in constructing a lid for the cell, it would spare no mortar to plug the gaping breaches in the walls of its cell, but deposited its egg in a chamber drained of honey, and then proceeded to perform the useless work of closing with futile diligence only the topmost aperture in this much perforated dwelling. Obviously, therefore, the bee failed to perceive the connection which existed between these breaches and the escape of the honey, and it was unable to apply its instinctive building skill to new uses by abstraction from the definite connection, in which the latter is normally operative.

Sense, therefore, and not intelligence, is the regulatory principle of instinct. To recognize causal and telic relationships is the prerogative of a superorganic intelligence. The transcendental link by which a useful means is referred to an ulterior end is something that cannot be sensed, but only understood. An animal, therefore, acts toward an end, not on account of an end. Nature, however, has compensated for this ignorance by implanting in each species of animal a special teleological disposition, by reason of which objects and actions, which are, under normal conditions, objectively useful to the individual, or the species, become invested for the animal with a subjective aspect of agreeableness, while objects and actions, which are normally harmful, are invested with a subjective aspect of repulsiveness. The qualities of serviceableness and pleasantness happen, so far as the animal is concerned, to be united in one and the same concrete object or action, but the animal is only aware of the pleasantness, which appeals to its senses, and not of the serviceableness, which does not. Thus, in the example already cited, the dog suffering from tapeworms eats the herb known as Common Wormwood, not because it is aware of the remedial efficacy of the herb, but simply because the odor and flavor of the plant appeal to the animal in its actual morbid condition, ceasing to do so, however, when the latter regains the state of health. How different is the action of the man whose blood is infected with malarial parasites and who takes quinine, not because the bitter taste of the alkaloid appeals to his palate, but solely because he has his future cure explicitly in view! “Finally,” says Weld, “the more we learn about instincts the more apparent it becomes that the situations from which they proceed are meaningful, but we need not suppose that the organism is aware of the meaning. The chick in the egg feels (we may only guess as to its nature) a vague discomfort, and the complicated reaction by which it makes its egress from the shell is released.” (Encycl. Am., v. 15, p. 169.)

Recapitulating, then, we may define instinct as a psycho-organic propensity, not acquired by education or experience, but congenital by inheritance and identical in all members of the same zoölogical species, having as its physical basis the specific nervous organization of the animal and as its psychic basis a teleological coördination of the cognitive, emotional, and motor functions, in virtue of which, given the proper physiological state of the organism and the presence of an appropriate environmental stimulus, an animal, without consciousness of purpose, is impelled to the inception, and regulated in the performance, of complicated behavior which is sensually gratifying and, under normal circumstances, simultaneously beneficial to the individual, or the race.

Instinctive acts are performed without previous experience or training on the part of the animal, and are, nevertheless, at least in the majority of cases, perfect in their first performance. A few, like the pecking-instinct of young chickens, are slightly improvable through sentient experience, e.g. the young chick, at first undiscriminating in the choice of the particles which it picks up, learns later by associative memory to distinguish what is tasty and edible from what is disagreeable and inedible, but, for the most part, the perfection of instinctive acts is independent of prior experience. Hence instinct is entirely different from human reason, which, in the solution of problems, is compelled to begin with reflection upon the data furnished by previous experience, or education. The animal, however, in its instinctive operations, without pausing to investigate, deliberate, or calculate, proceeds unhesitatingly on the very first occasion to a prompt and perfect solution of its problems. Hence, without study, consultation, planning, or previous apprenticeship of any sort, and in the complete absence of experimental knowledge, that might serve as matter for reflection or as a basis for inference, the animal is able to solve intricate problems in engineering, geometry, anatomy, pharmaceutics, etc., which the combined intelligence of mankind required centuries upon centuries of schooling, research, and reflection in order to solve. Of two things, therefore, one: either these actions do not proceed from an intelligent principle inherent in the animal; or they do, and in that case we are compelled to recognize in brute animals an intelligence superior to our own, because they accomplish deftly and without effort ingenious feats that human reason cannot duplicate, save clumsily and at the price of prolonged discipline and incessant drudgery. “Perhaps the strongest reason,” says an anonymous writer, “for not regarding the activities of instinct as intelligent is that in such enormously complex sequences of action as, for instance, the emperor moth carries out in the preparing of an escape-opening for itself on its completing the larval and passing into the imago state, the intelligence needed would be so great that it could not be limited to this single activity, and yet it is so limited.”[15]

Intelligence is essentially a generalizing and abstracting power; hence, from its very nature, it could not be limited to a single activity. Bestial instincts, however, though frequently so amazingly complex and ingeniously purposive as to seem the fruit of profound meditation, are, nevertheless, confined exclusively to this or that determinate ability. They operate within narrow and preëstablished grooves, from which they never swerve to any appreciable degree, being but little modifiable or perfectible by experience. Bees always construct hexagonal cells, spiders stick to the logarithmic spiral, and beavers never attempt to put their engineering skill to new uses. Instincts have but little pliancy, their regularity and uniformity being such as to make the instinctive abilities definitely predictable in the case of any given species of animal. Now, the distinctive mark of intelligence is versatility, that is, aptitude for many things without determinate restriction to this or that. A man who is expert in one art may, by reason of his intelligence, be equally proficient in a dozen others. The biologist may be a competent chemist, and the astronomer an excellent physicist. Michel Angelo was a sculptor, a frescoer, a painter, an anatomist, an engineer, and an architect, while Leonardo da Vinci had even more arts to his credit. To predict before birth the precise form that a man’s ability will take is an impossibility. Certain aptitudes, such as a musical gift, are no doubt inherited, but it is an inheritance which imposes no rigid necessity upon inheriter; since he is free to neglect this native talent, and to develop others for which he has no special innate aptitude. With man, the fashion in clothing and the styles of architecture vary from day to day. The brute, however, never emerges from the rut of instinct, and each generation of a given animal species monotonously reproduces the history of the previous generation. Man, on the contrary, is capable of indefinite progress, as the march of human cultures and civilizations shows. Gregarious animals are restricted by their instincts to determinate types of aggregation, as we see in the case of ants and bees. Hence these insect communities are unacquainted with our sanguinary revolutions which overturn monarchies in favor of republics, or set up dictatorships in place of democracies; for, fortunately or unfortunately, as one may choose to regard it, man is not limited to one form of government rather than another.

Animals, then, notwithstanding their wonderful instincts, are deficient in precisely that quality which is the unique criterion of intelligence, namely, versatility. Each species has but one stereotyped ability, outside of which it is woefully stupid and inefficient. “So long,” says Fabre, “as its circumstances are normal the insect’s actions are calculated most rationally in view of the object to be attained” (“The Mason-Bees,” p. 167), but let the circumstances cease to be normal, let them vary never so little from those which ordinarily obtain, and the animal is helpless, while its instinctive predisposition becomes, not merely futile, but often positively detrimental. Thus the instinct, which should, in the normal course of events, guide night-flying moths to the white flowers that contain the life-sustaining nectar of their nocturnal banquets, proves their undoing, when they come into contact with the white lights of artificial illumination. In fact, the fatal fondness of the moth for the candle flame has become in all languages a proverb for the folly of courting one’s own destruction.

The animal may employ an exquisitely efficient method in accomplishing its instinctive work, but is absolutely impotent to apply this ingenious method to more than one determinate purpose. Man, however, is not so restricted. He varies at will both his aims and his methods. He can adapt the same means (a pocketknife, for instance) to different ends, and, conversely, he can obtain the same end by the use of different means (e.g. communicate by mail, or telegraph, or radio). Man, in a word, is emancipated from limitation to the singular and the concrete by virtue of his unique prerogative, reason, or intelligence, the power that enables him to generalize from the particular and to abstract from the concrete. This is the secret of his unlimited versatility. This is the basis of his capacity for progress. This is the root of his freedom; for his will seeks happiness in general, happiness in the abstract, and is not, therefore, compelled to choose any particular form or concrete embodiment of happiness, such as this or that style of architecture, this or that form of government, this or that kind of clothing, etc., etc. Teleology is but a material expression of intelligence, and may, therefore, occur in things destitute of intelligence, but versatility is the inseparable concomitant and infallible sign of an inherent and autonomous intelligence. Lacking this quality, instinct, however telic, is obviously not intelligence.

Another indication of the fact that no intelligence lies behind the instinctive behavior of brutes is manifest from their evident unconsciousness of purpose. That the animal is ignorant of the purpose implied in its own instinctive actions appears from the fact that it will carry out these operations with futile diligence and exactitude, even when, through accident, the purpose is conspicuously absent. Thus the hen deprived of her eggs will, nevertheless, continue the now futile process of incubation for twenty-one days, or longer, despite the fact that her obstinacy in maintaining the straw of the empty nest at a temperature of 104° F. serves no useful purpose whatever. She cannot but sense the absence of the eggs; she has not, however, the intelligence to realize that incubation without eggs is vain. The connection between the latter and the former is something that mere sense cannot apprehend. Hence the hen is not troubled by the purposelessness of her performance. Fabre gives many examples of this futile persistence in instinctive operations, despite their complete frustration. Alluding to the outcome of his experiments on the Mason-wasp Pelapaeus, he says: “The Mason bees, the Caterpillar of the Great Peacock Moth, and many others, when subjected to similar tests, are guilty of the same illogical behaviour: they continue, in the normal order, their series of industrious actions, though accident has now rendered them all useless. Just like millstones unable to cease revolving though there be no corn left to grind, let them once be given the compelling power and they will continue to perform their task despite its futility.” (“Bramble Bees,” pp. 192, 193.)

The instance cited by Dr. H. D. Schmidt is an excellent illustration of this inability of an animal to appreciate either the utility or futility of its instinctive behavior. Having described the instinct of squirrels to bury nuts by ramming them into the ground with their teeth, and then using their paws to cover them with earth, he continues as follows: “Now, as regards the young squirrel, which, of course, never had been present at the burial of a nut, I observed that, after having eaten a number of hickory nuts to appease its appetite, it would take one between its teeth, then sit upright and listen in all directions. Finding all right, it would scratch upon the smooth blanket on which I was playing with it as if to make a hole, then hammer with the nut between its teeth upon the blanket, and finally perform all the motions required to fill up a hole—in the air; after which it would jump away, leaving the nut, of course, uncovered.” (Transactions of the Am. Neurological Ass’n, 1875, vol. I, p. 129—italics his.) This whole pantomime of purposeless gesticulations, from the useless “Stop, look and listen!” down to the final desertion of the uncovered nut, is overwhelming evidence of the fact that the brute is destitute of any rational faculty capable of recognizing the telic aspect of its own instinctive conduct.

The claim is sometimes made that certain forms of animal behavior are not unconsciously, but consciously, telic. Bouvier, for example, claims that in the rare cases of the use of tools among the Arthropoda, we have evidence of the existence of intelligent inventiveness of a rudimentary kind. Thus the crab Melia carries a sea-anemone in its chela as a weapon wherewith to sting its prey into a condition of paralysis. The leaf-cutting ants of India and Brazil use their own thread-spinning larvæ as tools for cementing together the materials out of which their nests are constructed. The predatory wasp Ammophila urnaria uses a pebble to tamp the filling of its burrow. According to the Wheelers (cf. Science, May 30, 1924, p. 486), the hunting wasp Sphex (Ammophila) gryphus (Sm.) makes similar use of a pebble. As Bouvier notes, however, this use of tools appears “to be rather exceptional ..., showing itself only in the primitive state consisting of the use of foreign bodies as implements.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1918, p. 456.) Moreover, the animals in question are limited to a concretely determinate kind of tool, which their environment supplies ready-made. Such a use of implements does not presuppose any power of abstraction and generalization. In fact, the presence of such a power is expressly excluded by the consideration that the animal’s so-called “inventiveness” is confined exclusively to one particularized manifestation.

At times the behavior of animals so closely simulates the consciously telic or intelligent conduct of men, that only severely critical methods enable us to discriminate between them. An experiment, which Erich Wasmann, S.J., performed upon ants will serve to illustrate this point. In one of his glass nests, Father Wasmann constructed an island of sand surrounded by a moat filled with water. He then removed from their “nursery” a certain number of the ant larvæ and placed them on the island. Thereupon the ants were observed to build a bridge of sand across the moat “for the purpose,” apparently, of rescuing the marooned larvæ. Such behavior seemed to imply an intelligent ordination of a means to an end. Wasmann’s second experiment, however, proved this inference to be wholly unwarranted; for, when he excavated a hole in the sand of the nest and filled it with water, the ants, stimulated by what to them was the disagreeable dampness of the marginal sand, were impelled to perform the reflex act of kicking about in the sand. This impulse persisted until all traces of the hole, the dampness and the water had been buried under a carpet of drier sand. Then, and then only, was the aforesaid impulse inhibited. Applying these results to the interpretation of the first experiment, we see that the “building of a bridge” in the first experiment was not intentional, but merely an accidental result of a kicking-reflex, with damp sand acting as a stimulator. Once the moat was bridged, however, the ants happened to find the larvæ, and were then impelled by instinct to carry the larvæ to their proper place in the nest. To see in such an incident a planned and premeditated rescue of the marooned larvæ would be grossly anthropomorphic. Nevertheless, had only the first experiment been performed, such an anthropomorphic interpretation would have seemed fully justified, and it was only by an appropriate variation of the conditions of the original experiment that this false interpretation could be definitively excluded.

Consciously telic behavior is distinguishable from unconsciously telic conduct only to the extent that it implies an agent endowed with the power of abstraction. Unless an agent can vary radically the specificity of the procedure, whereby it attains a given end, the purposiveness of its behavior is no evidence of its intelligence. “Among animals,” says Bergson, “invention is never more than a variation on the theme of routine. Locked up as it is within the habits of its species, the animal succeeds no doubt in broadening these by individual initiative; but its escape from automatism is momentary only, just long enough to create a new automatism; the gates of its prison close as soon as they are opened; dragging the chain merely lengthens it. Only with man does consciousness break the chain.” (Cf. Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1918, p. 457.)

In vain, then, do our Darwinian humanizers of the brute exalt instinct at the expense of intelligence. Their attempt to reduce to a difference of degree the difference of kind that separates the irrational from the rational, fails all along the line. Indeed, far from being able to account for the appearance of intelligence in the world, transformistic theories are impotent to account for so much as the development of instinct, all forms of the evolutionary theory, the Lamarckian, the Darwinian, the De-Vriesian, etc., being equally inadequate to the task of explaining the origin of animal instincts.

The complex instinctive behavior of predatory wasps, for example, is absolutely essential for the preservation of their respective races, and yet these indispensable instincts are completely useless in any other than the perfect state. From their very nature, therefore, they do not admit of gradual development. The law of all, or none, holds here. “Instinct developed by degrees,” says Fabre, “is flagrantly impossible. The art of preparing the larva’s provisions allows none but masters, and suffers no apprentices; the Wasp must excel in it from the outset or leave the thing alone.” (“The Hunting Wasps,” p. 403.) To be useful at all, the instinctive operation must possess an indivisible perfection, which cannot be partitioned into degrees. The Pompilius (Calicurgus), for instance, must, under penalty of instant death, take the preliminary precaution to sting into inaction the ganglion that controls the poison forceps of her formidable prey, the Black Tarantula (Lycosa), before she proceeds to paralyze it by stabbing its thoracic ganglion. The slightest imperfection or shortcoming in her surgery would be irretrievably disastrous. Such an instinct never existed in an imperfect form. The first wasp to possess it must have been an expert, or she would never have lived to serve the limp body of the huge spider as living provender for her tiny grub. “The first to come to grips with the Tarantula,” says Fabre, “had an unerring knowledge of her dangerous surgery. The least hesitation, the slightest speculation, and she was lost. The first teacher would also have been the last, with no disciples to take up her art and perfect it.” (“Bramble Bees,” p. 354.)

Another hunting wasp, the Hairy Ammophila, subdues a large caterpillar into a state of coma by pricking with its sting nine of the ventral ganglia, while it spares the cervical ganglion, merely compressing the latter with its mandibles, so as not to destroy life altogether. This nice discrimination rules out Loeb’s hypothesis of a so-called “chemotaxis.” As a result of this elaborate surgical operation, the power of movement is suppressed in every segment, and the tiny larva of the wasp emerging from the egg laid on the ventral surface of the caterpillar can devour this huge living, but motionless, victim in peace and safety. Dead meat would not agree with the larva, and any movement of the caterpillar would be fatal to the delicate grub. To eliminate these contingencies, the Wasp’s surgery must be perfect from the very outset. “There is,” says Fabre, “no via media, no half success. Either the caterpillar is treated according to rule and the Wasp and its family is perpetuated; or else the victim is only partially paralyzed and the Wasp’s offspring dies in the egg. Yielding to the inexorable logic of things, we will have to admit that the first Hairy Ammophila, after capturing a Grey Worm to feed her larva, operated on the patient by the exact method in use today.” (“The Hunting Wasps,” pp. 403, 404.)

Certain meticulous critics of our day cite the fact of the diffusion of the poison as indicating that the surgery of the hunting wasps need not be so perfectly accommodated to the nervous system of their prey, and they attempt in this way to discredit Fabre as having failed to take the occurrence of diffusion into account. A careful reading of his works, however, will serve to vindicate him in this respect. In a chapter on the poison of the bee, for instance, we read: “The local effect is diffused. This diffusion, which might well take place in the victims of the predatory insects, plays no part in the latter’s method of operation. The egg, which will be laid immediately afterwards, demands the complete inertia of the prey from the outset. Hence all the nerve-centers that govern locomotion must be numbed instantaneously by the virus.” (“Bramble Bees,” p. 347.) Bouvier, therefore, very justly remarks: “After all, when Fabre’s work is examined there is no trouble in seeing that none of these details escaped him. He never disputed the paralytic action of the poison inoculated by the insect, and the wonderful researches by the Peckhams on the Pompilids, which hunt Lycosids, have clearly established the fact that the thrusts of the sting given by the predatory insect produce two different kinds of paralysis, one functional, and often temporary, resulting from the action of the venom, the other structural and persistent, produced by the dart which more or less injures the nervous centers.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1916, p. 594.)

In the case of predatory insects, therefore, the instinct must be perfect at the outset, or survival is impossible. For the origin of such instincts, Darwinism, which stresses the gradualness of evolutionary progress, has no explanation that will hold water. Lamarckism, which sees in acquired habits transmitted by inheritance, the origin of instinct, the “memory of the race,” is equally at a loss to account for these instincts. The formation of habits requires practice and repetition. The predatory insect must be perfect at the start, and yet it only exercises its remarkable instinct once a year. Where is the practice and reiteration requisite for canalizing its nervous system into the conduction-paths of habit? How did one particular set of rarely performed acts happen to gain precedence over all others, and to be alone successful in stamping themselves indelibly upon the nerve plasm as habits, and upon the germ plasm as instincts? De-Vriesianism, which would make the acquisition and perfecting of instinct dependent upon the rare and accidental contingency of a fortuitous mutation, is even more objectionable. These instincts are vital to the insect. If their acquisition and improvement depend upon the lucky chance of a series of favorable mutations, its prospects of survival are nil; for it cannot afford to wait at all. “In order to live,” says Fabre, “we all require the conditions that enable us to live: this is a truth worthy of the famous axioms of La Palice. The predatory insects live by their talent. If they do not possess it to perfection, their race is lost.” (“Bramble Bees,” p. 364.)

Recently, there has been a revival of Lamarckism hitherto regarded as defunct. Guyer, Kammerer, and Pawlow profess to find factual justification for it, and Bouvier adopts it in his “La vie psychique des insectes” (1918), to account for the origin of instinct. Of the alleged facts of Kammerer and Guyer, we have spoken in a previous chapter. Here we shall content ourselves with few remarks on the experiments of Ivan Pawlow, as being especially relevant to the subject under consideration. The Russian physiologist has experimented on white mice, and claims that the mice of the fifth generation learned to answer a dinner bell in the space of five lessons, whereas their ancestors of the first generation had required a hundred lessons to answer the same signal. Hence he concludes: “The latest experiments ... show that conditioned reflexes, i.e., the highest nervous activity, are inherited.” (Science, Nov. 9, 1923, p. 360.) His results, however, do not tally with those recently obtained by E. C. MacDowell of the Carnegie Institution, by H. G. Bragg, and by E. M. Vicari of Columbia. MacDowell found that white rats trained in a circular maze did not improve in their susceptibility to training from generation to generation. “Children from trained parents,” he says, “or from trained parents and grandparents, take as long to learn the maze habit as the first generation used.” (Science, March 28, 1924, p. 303.) Having cited the similar results of Bragg, who experimented with white mice, he concludes: “The results are in full accord with those given above; they indicate that the training of the ancestors did not facilitate the learning of the descendants.” (Ibidem.) E. M. Vicari, using a simple maze and white rats, obtained the same results. “It seems clear,” she says, “that the latter generations have not been aided by the training of their ancestors.” (Ibidem.)

Bouvier’s conception, then, that the automatisms of instinct originate as automatisms of acquired habit, the latter being appropriated by inheritance, still stands in need of reliable experimental confirmation. Moreover, a theory of this sort could never account, as Weismann points out, for such phenomena as the specific instincts of worker bees, which are excluded from propagation. Nor can the theory explain, as originating in acquired habit, those instinctive operations of enormous complexity, like the complicated method of emergence employed by the larva of the emperor moth, which only occur once in a lifetime, and could not, therefore, fasten themselves on the organism as a habit.

An evolutionary origin of instinct, however, though extremely improbable, is, at any rate, not absolutely inconceivable. Its teleology, as we have seen, does not imply inherent intelligence, but is explicable as an innate law involving appropriate coördination of the sensory, emotional, and motor functions, all of which are intrinsically dependent on the organism. But intelligence, as we have seen, is a superorganic power, having its source in a spiritual principle, that, from the very nature of things, cannot be evolved from matter. Human reason, therefore, owes its origin, not to any evolution of the human body, but to the creation of the human soul, which is the source and subject of that unique prerogative of man, namely: the power of abstract thought.

CHAPTER III THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN BODY — § 1. Two Theories of Descent — § 2. Embryological Resemblances — § 3. Rudimentary Organs — § 4. Fossil Links — § 5. The Edict of the American Association

In an article published August 31, 1895, in the New York Freeman’s Journal, the late Rev. J. A. Zahm gave expression to the following opinion: “The evolution of the body of man from some inferior animal and its subsequent endowment in this body by God of a rational soul is antagonistic to no dogma of faith and may be shown to be in harmony with the teachings of St. Thomas.” The scriptural and theological aspect of this view need not concern us here, our sole purpose being to evaluate it from a purely scientific standpoint. Once evolutionary thought takes cognizance of the fact that the human soul is a spiritual principle underivable from mere matter, once it acknowledges the immediate creation of the human soul, and professes to do no more than account for the origin of man’s animal body, that moment is it shorn of its materialistic implications; but what, we may ask, are the foundations of such an hypothesis in the realm of scientific fact?

The writer must confess that he cannot fathom the mentality of those who accept the evolutionary explanation, so far as plant and animal organisms are concerned, but proceed to draw the line when it comes to applying it to the human body. For if one (to borrow Du Bois-Reymond’s expression) “gives so much as his little finger to” the evolutional argument from organic homology, he must end, in so far as he is consistent, in acknowledging as incontestable its obvious application to man. The only choice which sound logic can sanction is between fixism and a thoroughgoing system of transformism, which does not exempt the human body from the scope of the evolutionary explanation. Indeed, the theory of evolution itself stands or falls upon this issue; for, if structures so strikingly similar as the skeletons of a man and an ape, respectively, have originated from two distinct ancestral stocks, then in no case at all is the inference of common descent from structural resemblance a legitimate procedure. In other words, if the homologies existent between the human and simian organisms are explicable on some other basis than that of common ancestry, then all organic homologies are so explicable, and the whole evolutionary argument collapses.

Two theories have been formulated regarding the alleged bestial origin of the human body: (1) the theory of lineal descent from some known species (living or fossil) of ape or monkey; (2) the theory of collateral descent from a hypothetical bestial ancestor common to apes and men. The theory of lineal descent is that to which Darwin himself stands committed. This theory, however, soon fell into disrepute among scientists, who came to prefer the theory of collateral descent, although signs of a return to the older theory are not wanting in our day. At all events, Darwin came out flatly in favor of the monkey origin of man. This, it is true, has been indignantly denied by loyal partisans anxious to exonerate their idol from the reproach of having advanced a crude and now obsolete theory of human descent. But Darwin’s own words speak for themselves: “The Simiadae,” he says, “then branched off into two great stems, the New World and Old World monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period of time, Man, the wonder and glory of the Universe, proceeded.” (“Descent of Man,” 2nd ed., ch. VI, pp. 220, 221.) Note that he does not say “probably”; his language is not the language of hypothesis, but of categorical affirmation.

The theory, however, which is most generally favored at the present time holds that, assuming the universality of the evolutionary process, all existing types must be of equal antiquity, and none prior or ancestral to any other. Hence it regards man, not as the direct descendant of any known type of ape, but as the offspring of an as yet undiscovered Tertiary ancestor, from which men and apes have diverged in two distinct lines of descent. “Monkeys, apes, and men,” says Conklin, “have descended from some common but at present extinct ancestor. Existing apes and monkeys are collateral relatives of man but not his ancestors; his cousins but not his parents.... The human branch diverged from the anthropoid stock not less than two million years ago, and since that time man has been evolving in the direction represented by existing human races, while the apes have been evolving in the direction represented by existing anthropoids. During all this time men and apes have been growing more and more unlike and conversely the farther back we go, the more we should find them converging until they meet in a common stock which should be intermediate between these two stocks.” (“Evolution and the Bible,” pp. 12, 13—italics his.)

Barnum Brown’s recent discovery of three jaws of the fossil ape Dryopithecus in the Siwalik Hills of India has, as previously intimated, resulted in a return on the part of certain scientists, e.g. Wm. K. Gregory and Dudley J. Morton, to views that more nearly approximate those of Charles Darwin. According to these men, the fossil anthropoid Dryopithecus is to be regarded as the common ancestor of men, chimpanzees, and gorillas. (Cf. Science, April 25, 1924, Suppl. XII.)

Many considerations, however, militate against the direct derivation of man’s bodily frame from any known species of ape, whether living or fossil. Dana has pointed out that, as regards the mechanism of locomotion, man belongs to a more primitive type than the ape. The earliest and lowest type of vertebrates are the fish, and these, according to the above-mentioned author, are urosthenic (tail-strong), inasmuch as they propel themselves by means of their tails. Next in point of organization and time came the merosthenic vertebrates, which have their strength concentrated in the hind-limbs, e.g. reptiles like the dinosaurs. In the last place come the prosthenic vertebrates, whose strength is concentrated in the fore-limbs, e.g. the carnivora and apes. Now man belongs to the merosthenic type, and his mode of progression, therefore, is more primitive than that of apes, which are prosthenic, all anthropoid apes, such as the gorilla, the chimpanzee, the orang-utan and the gibbon having longer fore-limbs than hind-limbs.

The striking anatomical differences between apes and men, though not of sufficient importance to exclude the possibility of collateral relationship, are so many solid arguments against the theory of direct descent. We will content ourselves with a mere enumeration of these differences. In the ape, the cranium has a protruding muzzle and powerful jaws equipped with projecting canine teeth, but the brain-case is comparatively small; in man, on the contrary, the facial development is insignificant and the teeth are small and vertical, while the brain-case is enormous in size, having at least twice the capacity of that of an ape. “The face of man,” to quote Ranke, “slides, as it were, down from the forehead and appears as an appendix to the front half of the skull. But the gorilla’s face, on the contrary, protrudes from the skull, which in turn slides almost entirely backward from the face. By a cross-cut one may sever the whole face from the skull, except a very small part near the sockets, without being forced to open up the interior of the skull. It is only on account of its protruding, strongly developed lower parts that the skull-cap of the animal can simulate a kind of human face.” (“Der Mensch,” vol. II, p. 401.) These differences may be summarized by saying that the head of the ape is specialized for mastication and defense, whereas the head of man is specialized for psychic functions. Again, as we have seen, the fore-limbs of the ape are long, and its hind-limbs short, the extremities of both the latter and the former being specialized primarily for prehension and only secondarily for progression. This is due to the ape’s adaptation to arboreal life. In man, however, the arms are short and specialized for prehension alone, while the legs are long and terminate in broad plantigrade feet specialized for progression alone. Man, consequently, is not adapted to arboreal life. In the ape, the spine has a single curve, and the occipital foramen (the aperture through which the spinal cord enters the brain-case) is eccentrically located in the floor of the cranial box; in man, the spine has a double curve, and the occipital foramen is centrally located, both features being in adaptation to the upright posture peculiar to man—“die zentralle Lage dieser Oeffnung,” says Ranke alluding to the occipital foramen of man, “in der Schädelbasis ist für den Menschenschädel im Unterschied gegen den Tierschädel eine in hohem Masse typische.” (“Der Mensch,” vol. I, p. 378.) In the ape, therefore, the vertebræ have an adaptation producing convexity of the back, precluding a normal upright posture, and enforcing progression on all fours. It has, moreover, powerful muscles at the back of the neck to carry the head in the horizontal position necessitated by this mode of progression. In man “the skull has the occipital condyles placed within the middle fifth, in adaptation to the vertical position of the spine” (Nicholson), the spinal cord enters the cranial box at a perpendicular, and the head balances on the spinal column as on a pivot, all of which ensures the erect posture and bipedal progression in man. There are, moreover, no neck muscles to support the head in any other than the vertical position. There are many other differences, besides: the ape, for example, has no chin, while in man there is a marked mental protuberance; man has a slender waist, but the ape has a barrel-like torso without any waist; the ape has huge bony ridges for the attachment of muscles, e.g. the sagittal crest, the superciliary ridges, etc., while in man such features are practically absent.

Ranke has given a very good summary of the chief anatomical differences between man and the anthropoid apes: “The gorilla’s head leaning forward, hangs down from the spinal column, and his chinless snout, equipped with powerful teeth, touches the breastbone. Man’s head is round, and resting on a free neck, balances unrestrained upon the spinal column. The gorilla’s body, without a waist, swells out barrel-shaped, and when straightened up finds no sufficient support on the pelvis; the back-bone, tailless as in man, but almost straight, loses itself without nape or neck formation properly so-called in the rear part of the head and without protuberance of the gluteal region in the flat thighs. Man’s body is slightly molded, like an hour-glass, the chest and abdomen meeting to form a waist where they are narrowest; the abdominal viscera are perfectly supported in the pelvis as in a plate; and elegance is decidedly gained by the double S-line, which, curving alternately convex and concave, passes from the crown through the neck and nape, down the back to the base of the spine and the gluteal region. The normal position of the gorilla shows us a plump, bear-like trunk, carried by short, crooked legs and by arms which serve as crutches and touch the ground with the knuckles of the turned-in fingers. The posture of the body is perfectly straight in man, it rests on the legs as on columns when he stands upright, and his hands hang down on both sides always ready for use. The gorilla is thickly covered with hair, while man’s body on the whole is naked.” (Op. cit., vol. II, p. 213.)

In conclusion, we may say that, while there is a general resemblance between the human body and that of an anthropoid ape, there is, likewise, a particular divergence—“there is no bone, be it ever so small, nay, not even the smallest particle of a bone, in which the general agreement in structure and function would pass over into real identity.” (Ranke, op. cit., vol. I, p. 437.) Hence Virchow declares that “the differences between man and monkey are so wide that almost any fragment is sufficient to diagnose them.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1889, p. 566.) These differences are so considerable as to preclude the possibility of a direct genealogical connection between man and any known type of ape or monkey—“The testimony of comparative anatomy,” to quote Bumüller, “is decidedly against the theory of man’s descent from the ape.” (“Mensch oder Affe?” p. 59.) Ranke has somewhere called man a brain-animal, and this sums up the chief difference, which marks off the human body from all bestial organisms. In the ape the brain weighs only 100th part of the weight of its body, whereas in man the brain has a weight equivalent to the 37th part of the weight of the human body. The cranial capacity of the largest apes ranges from 500 to 600 c.cm., while the average cranial capacity in man is 1500 c.cm. Moreover, the human brain is far more extensively convoluted within the brain-case than that of an ape, so much so that the surface or cortical area of the human brain is four times as great as that of the ape’s brain. Thus Wundt, in his “Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie,” cites H. Wagner as assigning to man a brain surface of from 2,196 to 1,877 sq. cm., but a cortical area of only 535 sq. cm. in the case of an orang-outang. (Cf. English Translation by Titchener, vol. I, p. 286.)

Another difficulty in the way of the Darwinian theory of direct descent is the fact that the best counterparts of human anatomy are not found united in any one species of ape or monkey, but are scattered throughout a large number of species. “Returning to the old discussion,” says Thomas Dwight, “as to which ape can boast of the closest resemblance to man, Kohlbrugge brings before us Aeby’s forgotten book on the skull of man and apes. His measurements show that the form nearest to man among apes is the gibbon, or long-armed ape, but that the South American monkey Crysothrix is nearer still. Aeby recognized what modern anatomists have forgotten or wilfully ignored: that any system of descent is inadequate which does not recognize that the type of man is not in any one organ, but in all the physical and psychological features. He declared that while we are far from having this universal knowledge, we have learned enough about the various parts of the body to make it impossible for us to sketch any plan of descent. ‘It almost seems as if every part had its own line of descent, different from that of others.’ ... Kohlbrugge now introduces Haacke, who denies any relationship between man and apes, the latter being instances of one-sided development. He even dares to declare anyone who speaks of an intermediate form between man and apes to be ignorant of the laws of development governing the race history of mammals. He believes man came from some lemuroid form, which may have descended from the insectivora.” (“Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist,” pp. 188-190.)

All known types, then, of apes and monkeys are too specialized to have been in the direct line of human descent. Man, as Kohlbrugge ironically remarks, appears to have come from an ancestor much more like himself than any species of ape we know of. Moreover, no species of apes or monkeys monopolizes the honors of closest resemblance to man. In many points, the South American monkeys, though more primitive than the anthropoid apes, are more similar to man than the latter.

Much has been made of the so-called biogenetic law as an argument for the bestial origin of mankind. This theory of the embryological recapitulation of racial history was first formulated by Fritz Müller. Haeckel, however, was the one who exploited it most extensively, and who exalted it to the status of “the fundamental law of biogenesis.”[16] The latter’s statement of the principle is as follows: “Die Ontogenesis ist die Palingenesis der Phylogenesis.”—Ontogeny (the development of the individual) is a recapitulation of phylogeny (the development of the race). For a long time this law was received with uncritical credulity by the scientific world, but enthusiasm diminished when more careful studies made it clear that the line of descent suggested by embryology did not agree with what was inferred from comparative anatomy and the sequence of fossil forms. Besides, it was manifest that certain organs in embryos were distinctively embryonic and could never have functioned in adult forms, e.g. the yolk sac and the amnion. “It was recognized,” says T. H. Morgan, “that many embryonic stages could not possibly represent ancestral animals. A young fish with a huge yolk sac attached could scarcely ever have led a happy, free life as an adult individual. Such stages were interpreted, however, as embryonic additions to the original ancestral type. The embryo had done something on its own account. In some animals the young have structures that attach them to the mother, as does the placenta of mammals. In other cases the young develop membranes about themselves—like the amnion of the chick and the mammal—that would have shut off an adult animal from all intercourse with the outside world. Hundreds of such embryonic structures are known to embryologists. These were explained as adaptations and as falsifications of the ancestral records.” (“Critique of the Theory of Evolution,” pp. 16, 17.)

The result has been that this so-called law has fallen into general disrepute among scientists, especially as a means of reconstructing the phylogeny of modern organisms. It is recognized, of course, that comparative embryology can furnish embryological homologies analogous to the homologies of comparative anatomy, but it is now generally acknowledged that the view, which regards the embryological process as an abridged repetition of the various states through which the species has passed in its evolutionary career must be definitively abandoned, and that, as a general law of organic development, the biogenetic principle has been thoroughly discredited. “This law,” says Karl Vogt of Geneva, “which I long held as well-founded, is absolutely and radically false. Attentive study of embryology shows us, in fact, that embryos have their own conditions suitable to themselves, and very different from those of adults.” (Quoted by Quatrefages De Breau, in his “Les Emules de Darwin,” vol. II, p. 13.) “There can no longer be question,” says Prof. M. Caullery of the Sorbonne, “of systematically regarding individual development as a repetition of the history of the stock. This conclusion results from the very progress made under the inspiration received from this imaginary law, the law of biogenesis.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1916, p. 325.)

This collapse of the biogenetic law has tumbled into ruins the elaborate superstructure of genealogy which Haeckel had reared upon it. His series of thirty stages extending from the fictitious “cytodes” up to man, inclusively, is even more worthless today than it was when Du Bois-Reymond made his ironic comment: “Man’s pedigree, as drawn up by Haeckel, is worth about as much as is that of Homer’s heroes for critical historians.” (Revue Scientifique, 1877, I, p. 1101.) Haeckel tried in vain to save his discredited law by means of the expedient of cænogenesis, that is, “the falsification of the ancestral record (palingenesis).” That Nature should be guilty of “falsification” is an hypothesis not to be lightly entertained, and it is more credible, as Wasmann remarks, to assume that Haeckel, and not Nature, is the real falsifier, inasmuch as he has misrepresented Nature in his “fundamental biogenetic law.” Cænogenesis is a very convenient device. One can alternate at will between cænogenesis and palingenesis, just as, in comparative anatomy, one can alternate capriciously between convergence and homology, on the general understanding of its being a case of: “Heads, I win; tails, you lose”—certainly, there is no objective consideration to restrain us in such procedure. “Such weapons as Cænogenesis and Convergence,” says Kohlbrugge (in his “Die Morphologische Abstammung des Menschen,” 1908) “are unfortunately so shaped that anyone can use them when they suit him, or throw them aside when they do not. They show, therefore, in the prettiest way the uncertainty even now of the construction of the theory of descent. As soon as we go into details it leaves us in the lurch; it was only while our knowledge was small that everything seemed to fit together in most beautiful order.” (Quoted by Dwight in “Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist,” p. 187.)

It is undeniable, indeed, that in many cases the young of higher animals pass through stages in which they bear at least a superficial resemblance to adult stages in inferior and less complex organisms. Obviously, however, there cannot be any direct derivation of the embryonic features of one organism from the adult characters of another organism. This preposterous implication of the Müller-Haeckel Law must, as Morgan points out, be entirely eliminated, before it can merit serious consideration. Referring to the spiral cleavage exhibited by annelid, planarian and molluscan eggs, Morgan says: “It has been found that the cleavage pattern has the same general arrangement in the early stages of flat worms, annelids and molluscs. Obviously these stages have never been adult ancestors, and obviously if their resemblance has any meaning at all, it is that each group has retained the same general plan of cleavage possessed by their common ancestor.... Perhaps someone will say, ‘Well! is not this all that we have contended for! Have you not reached the old conclusion in a roundabout way?’ I think not. To my mind there is a wide difference between the old statement that the higher animals living today have the original adult stages telescoped into their embryos, and the statement that the resemblance between certain characters in the embryos of higher animals and corresponding stages in the embryos of lower animals is most plausibly explained by the assumption that they have descended from the same ancestors, and that their common structures are embryonic survivals.” (Op. cit., pp. 22, 23.)

After this admission, however, nothing remains of the law of “recapitulation” except simple embryological homology comparable, in every sense, to adult homology, and adding nothing essentially new to the latter argument for evolution. It is, therefore, ridiculous for evolutionists to speak of branchial (gill) arches and clefts in man. The visceral or pharyngeal arches and grooves appearing in the human embryo are unquestionably homologous with the genuine branchial arches and clefts in a fish embryo. In the latter, however, the grooves become real clefts through perforation, while the arches become the lamellæ of the permanent gills, thus adapting the animal to aquatic respiration. It is, accordingly, perfectly legitimate to refer to these embryonic structures in the young fish as gill arches and gill clefts. In man, however, the corresponding embryonic structures develop into the oral cavity, auditory meatus, ossicles of the ear, the mandible, the lower lip, the tongue, the cheek, the hyoid bone, the styloid process, the thymus, the thyroid and tracheal cartilages, etc. There is no perforation of the grooves, and the arches develop into something quite different than branchial lamellæ. Hence the correct name for these structures in the human embryo is pharyngeal (visceral) arches and grooves, their superficial resemblance to the embryonic structures in the fish embryo being no justification for calling them branchial. In short, the mere fact that certain embryonic structures in the young fish (homologous to the pharyngeal arches and grooves in the human embryo) develop into the permanent gills of the adult fish, is no more significant than the association of homology with divergent preadaptations, which is of quite general occurrence among adult vertebrate types. In all such cases, we have instances of fundamentally identical structures, diverted, as it were, to entirely different purposes or functions (e.g. the arm of a man and the flipper of a whale). Hence the argument drawn from embryological homology is no more cogent than the argument drawn from the homologies of comparative anatomy, which we have already discussed in a previous chapter. The misuse of the term branchial, to prejudge matters in their own favor, is in keeping with the customary policy of evolutionists. It is intended, naturally, to convey the impression that man, in the course of his evolution, has passed through a fish-like stage. At bottom, however, it is nothing more than a verbal subterfuge, that need not detain us further.

The theory of embryological recapitulation is often applied to man, with a view to establishing the doctrine of his bestial ancestry. We have seen one instance of this application, and we shall consider one other, for the purpose of illustrating more fully the principles involved. The claim is made by evolutionists, that man must have passed through a fish or amphibian stage, because, in common with all other mammals, he exhibits, during his embryological development, a typical fish (or, if you prefer, amphibian) kidney, which subsequently atrophies, only to be replaced by the characteristic mammalian kidney. The human embryo, therefore, repeats the history of our race, which must have passed through a fish-like stage in the remote past. In consequence of this phenomenon, therefore, it is inferred that man must have had fish-like ancestors. Let us pause, however, to analyze the facts upon which this inference is based.

In annelids, like the earthworm, the nephridia or excretory tubules are arranged segmentally, one pair to each somite. In vertebrates, however, the nephridial tubules, instead of developing in regular sequence from before backwards, develop in three batches, one behind the other, the anterior batch being called the pronephros, the middle one, the mesonephros and the posterior one, the metanephros. This, according to J. Graham Kerr, holds true not only of the amniotic vertebrates (reptiles, birds, and mammals) but also, with a certain reservation, of the anamniotic vertebrates (fishes and amphibians). “In many of the lower Vertebrates,” says this author, “there is no separation between the mesonephros and metanephros, the two forming one continuous structure which acts as the functional kidney. Such a type of renal organ consisting of the series of tubules corresponding to mesonephros together with metanephros may conveniently be termed the opisthonephros.” (“Textbook of Embryology,” II—Vertebrata, p. 221.) If we accept this view, it is not quite accurate to regard the mesonephros in man as a homologue of the opisthonephros of a fish, seeing that the latter is composed not only of mesonephridia (mesonephric tubules), but also of metanephridia (metanephric tubules). A brief description of the three nephridial systems of vertebrate embryos will serve to further clarify their interrelationship.

(1) The pronephric system: This consists of a collection of tubules called the pronephros, and a pronephric duct leading to the cloaca, or terminal portion of the alimentary canal. The pronephros is a functional organ in the frog tadpole and other larval amphibia. It is also found in a few teleosts, where it is said to persist as a functional organ in the adult. In other fishes, however, and in all higher forms the pronephros atrophies and becomes reduced to a few rudiments.[17]

(2) The mesonephric system: This consists of a collection of nephridial tubules called the mesonephros (Wolffian body). The tubules of the mesonephros do not develop any duct of their own, but utilize the posterior portion of the pronephric duct, the said tubules becoming secondarily connected with this duct in a region posterior to the pronephridia (tubules of the pronephros). The pronephric tubules together with the anterior portion of the pronephric duct then atrophy, while the persisting posterior portion of this duct receives the name of mesonephric or Wolffian duct. The duct in question still terminates in the cloaca, and serves, in the male, the combined function of a urinary and spermatic duct; but, in the female, a special oviduct (the Müllerian duct) is superadded because of the large size of the eggs to be transmitted, the Wolffian or mesonephric duct subserving only the urinary function. The mesonephros is functional in mammalian embryos, but atrophies and disappears coincidently with the development of the permanent kidney. The same is true of amniotic vertebrates generally, except that in the case of reptiles the mesonephros persists for a few months after hatching in the adult, the definitive kidney of the adult being reinforced during that interval by the still functional mesonephros. In anamniotic vertebrates, however, no separation exists between the mesonephros and the metanephros, the two forming one continuous structure, the opisthonephros, which acts as the functional kidney of the adult.

(3) The metanephric system: In the amniotic vertebrates the mesonephros and metanephros are distinct, the former being functional in embryos and in adult reptiles (for a few months after hatching), while the metanephros becomes the definitive kidney of the adult. The metanephros is a collection of nephridial tubules provided with a special urinary duct called the ureter, which empties into the bladder (not the cloaca). The Wolffian or mesonephric duct is retained as a sperm duct in the male (of amniotic vertebrates), but becomes vestigial in the female. Only a certain number of the nephridial tubules of the embryonic metanephros are taken over to form part of the permanent or adult kidney (in mammals, birds, and reptiles).

If, then, as we have previously observed, we follow Kerr in regarding the fish kidney, not as a simple mesonephros, but as an opisthonephros (i.e. a combination of mesonephros and metanephros), there is no warrant for interpreting the embryonic mesonephros of man and mammals generally as the fish-kidney stage. But waiving this consideration, and assuming, for the sake of argument, that the fish kidney is a perfect homologue of the human mesonephros, the mere fact of the adoption by the human embryo of a temporary solution of its excretory problem similar to the permanent solution of that problem adopted by the fish, would not, of itself, imply the common ancestry of men and fishes. Such a coincidence would be fully explicable as a case of convergent adaptation occurring in the interest of embryonic economy.

It is, indeed, a well-known fact that larval and embryonic organisms are often obliged to defer temporarily the construction of the more complex structures of adult life, and to improvise simpler substitutes for use until such a time as they have accumulated a sufficient reserve of energy and materials to complete the work of their more elaborate adult organization. The young starfish, for example, arising as it does from an egg but scantily supplied with yolk, is forced, from the very outset, to shift for itself, in coping with the food-getting problem. Under stress of this necessity, it economizes its slender resources by constructing the extremely simple digestive and motor apparatus characteristic of the larva in its bilaterally-symmetrical Bipinnaria stage, and postponing the development of the radially-symmetrical structure characteristic of the adult stage, until it has stored up the wherewithal to complete its metamorphosis.

From this viewpoint, there is no difficulty in understanding why temporary solutions of the excretory problem should precede the definitive solution of this problem in mammalian embryos. The problem of excretion is urgent from the outset, and its demands increase with the growth of the embryo. It is only natural, then, that a series of improvised structures should be resorted to, in a case of this kind; and, since these temporary solutions of the excretory problem must, of necessity, be as simple as possible, it should not be in the least surprising to find them coinciding with the permanent solutions adopted by inferior organisms less complexly organized than the mammals. Hence the bare fact of resemblance between the transitory embryonic kidney of a mammal and the permanent adult kidney of a fish would have no atavistic significance. We know of innumerable cases in which an identical adaptation occurs in genetically unrelated organisms. The cephalopod mollusc Nautilus, for example, solves the problem of light-perception in the identical manner in which it is solved by the vertebrates. This mollusc has the perfect vertebrate type of eye, including the lens and all other parts down to the minutest detail. The fact, however, that the mollusc solves its problem by using the stereotyped solution found in vertebrates rather than by developing a compound eye analogous to the type found among arthropods, is wholly destitute of genetic significance. In fact, the genetic interpretation is positively rejected by the evolutionists, who interpret the occurrence of similar eyes in molluscs and vertebrates as an instance of “accidental convergence.” Even assuming, then, what Kerr denies, namely, a perfect parallelism between the mesonephros of the human embryo and the permanent kidney of an adult fish, the alleged fact that the human embryo temporarily adopts the same type of solution for its excretory problem as the one permanently employed by the fish would not in itself be a proof of our descent from a fish-like ancestor.

In fact, not only is embryological homology of no greater value than adult homology as an argument for evolution, but it is, on the contrary, considerably inferior to the latter, as regards cogency. Differentiation pertains to the final or adult stage of organisms. Embryonic structures, inasmuch as they are undeveloped and undifferentiated, present for that very reason an appearance of crude and superficial similarity. “Most of what is generally ascribed to the action of the so-called biogenetic law,” says T. Garbowski, “is erroneously ascribed to it, since all things that are undeveloped and incomplete must be more or less alike.” (“Morphogenetische Studien,” Jena, 1903.) When we consider the fact that the metazoa have all a similar unicellular origin, are subject to uniform morphogenetic laws, and are frequently exposed to analogous environmental conditions demanding similar adaptations, it is not at all surprising that they should present many points of resemblance (both in their embryonic and their adult morphology) which are not referable to any particular line of descent. At all events, these resemblances are far too general in their extension to enable us to specify the type of ancestor responsible therefor. More especially is this true of embryological homologies, which are practically valueless as basis for reconstructing the phylogeny of any type. “That certain phenomena,” says Oskar Hertwig, “recur with great regularity and uniformity in the development of different species of animals, is due chiefly to the fact that under all circumstances they supply the necessary condition under which alone the next higher stage in ontogeny (embryological development) can be produced.” (“Allgemeine Biologie,” 1906, p. 595.) The same author, therefore, proposes to revamp Haeckel’s “biogenetisches Grundgesetz” as follows: “We must leave out the words ‘recapitulation of forms of extinct ancestors’ and substitute for them ‘repetition of forms regularly occurring in organic development, and advancing from the simple to the more complex.’” (Op. cit., p. 593.)

Finally, when applied to the problem of man’s alleged genetic connection with the ape, the biogenetic principle proves the exact reverse of what the Darwinians desire; for as a matter of fact the young apes resemble man much more closely in the shape of the skull and facial features than do the adult animals. Inasmuch, therefore, as the ape, in its earlier development, reveals a more marked resemblance to man than is present in its later stages, it follows, according to the “biogenetic law,” that man is the ancestor of the ape. This, however, is inadmissible, seeing that the ape is by no means a more recent type than man. Consequently, as applied to man, the Haeckelian principle leads to a preposterous conclusion, and thereby manifests its worthlessness as a clue to phylogeny. Julius Kollmann, it is true, gives serious attention to this likeness between young apes and men, and makes it the basis of his scheme of human evolution. “Kollmann,” says Dwight, “starts from the fact that the head of a young ape is very much more like that of a child than the head of an old ape is like that of a man. He holds that the likeness of the skull of a very young ape is so great that there must be a family relationship. He believes that some differentiation, some favorable variation, must occur in the body of the mother and so a somewhat higher skull is transmitted to the offspring and is perpetuated. Concerning which Kohlbrugge remarks that ‘thus the first men were developed, not from the adult, but from the embryonic forms of the anthropoids whose more favorable form of skull they managed to preserve in further growth.’ ... Schwalbe makes the telling criticism of these views of Kollmann that much the same thing might be said of the heads of embryonic animals in general that is said of those of apes, and that thus mammals might be said to have come from a more man-like ancestor.” (Op. cit., pp. 186, 187.) All of which goes to show that the “biogenetic law” is more misleading than helpful in settling the question of human phylogeny.

Darwin attached great importance to the existence in man of so-called rudimentary organs, which he regarded as convincing evidence of man’s descent from the lower forms of animal life. Nineteenth century science, being ignorant of the functional purpose served by many organs, arbitrarily pronounced them to be useless organs, and chose, in consequence, to regard them all as the atrophied and (wholly or partially) functionless remnants of organs that were formerly developed and fully functional in remote ancestors of the race. Darwin borrowed this argument from Lamarck. It may be stated thus: Undeveloped and functionless organs are atrophied organs. But atrophy is the result of disuse. Now disuse presupposes former use. Consequently, rudimentary organs were at one time developed and functioning, viz. in the remote ancestors of the race. Since, therefore, these selfsame organs are developed and functional in the lower forms of life, it follows that the higher forms, in which these organs are reduced and functionless, are descended from forms similar to those in which said organs are developed and fully functional.

This argument, however, fairly bristles with assumptions that are not only wholly unwarranted, but utterly at variance with actual facts. In the first place, it wrongly assumes that all reduced organs are functionless, and, conversely, that all functionless organs are atrophied or reduced. Facts, however, prove the contrary; for we find frequent instances of reduced organs which function, and, vice versa, of well-developed organs which are functionless. The tail, for example, in cats, dogs, and certain Catarrhine monkeys, though it discharges neither the prehensile function that makes it useful in the Platyrrhine monkey, nor the protective function that makes it useful to horses and cattle in warding off flies, is, nevertheless, despite its inutility or absence of function, a quite fully developed organ. Conversely, the reduced or undeveloped fin-like wings of the penguin are by no means functionless, since they enable this bird to swim through the water with great facility.

To save his argument from this antagonism of the facts, Darwin resorts to the ingenious expedient of distinguishing between rudimentary organs and nascent organs. Rudimentary organs are undeveloped organs, which are wholly, or partially, useless. They have had a past, but have no future. Nascent organs, on the contrary, are undeveloped organs, which “are of high service to their possessors” (“Descent of Man,” ch. I, p. 28, 2nd ed.). They “are capable of further development” (ibidem), and have, therefore, a future before them. He gives the following examples of rudimentary organs: “Rudimentary organs ... are either quite useless, such as teeth which never cut through the gums, or almost useless, such as the wings of an ostrich, which serve merely as sails.” (“Origin of Species,” 6th ed., ch. XIV, p. 469.) As an example of a nascent organ, he gives the mammary glands of the oviparous Duckbill: “The mammary glands of the Ornithorhynchus may be considered, in comparison with the udders of a cow, as in a nascent condition.” (Op. cit., ch. XIV, p. 470.)

Darwin admits that it is hard to apply this distinction in the concrete: “It is, however, often difficult to distinguish between rudimentary and nascent organs; for we can judge only by analogy whether a part is capable of further development, in which case alone it deserves to be called nascent.” (Op. cit., ch. XIV, p. 469.) For Darwin “judging by analogy” meant judging on the assumption that evolution has really taken place; for he describes rudimentary organs as being “of such slight service that we can hardly suppose that they were developed under the conditions which now exist.” (“Descent of Man,” ch. I, p. 29.)

He is somewhat perplexed about applying this distinction to the penguin: “The wing of the penguin,” he admits, “is of high service, acting as a fin; it may, therefore, represent the nascent state: not that I believe this to be the case; it is more probably a reduced organ, modified for a new function.” (“Origin of Species,” 6th ed., ch. XIV, pp. 469, 470.) In other words, there is scarcely any objective consideration by which the validity of this distinction can be checked up in practice. Like homology and convergence, like palingenesis and cænogensis, the distinction between rudimentary and nascent organs is a convenient device, which can be arbitrarily manipulated according to the necessities of a preconceived theory. It is “scientific” sanction for the privilege of blowing hot and cold with the same breath.

The assumption that atrophy and reduction are the inevitable consequence of disuse, or diminution of use, in so far as this decreases the flow of nourishing blood to unexercised parts, is certainly erroneous. Yet Darwin made it the premise of his argument from so-called rudimentary organs. “The term ‘disuse’ does not relate,” he informs us, “merely to lessened action of muscles, but includes a diminished flow of blood to the part or organ, from being subjected to fewer alternations of pressure, or from being in any way less habitually active.” (“Origin of Species,” 6th ed., p. 469.) As a matter of fact, however, we have many instances in which use has failed to develop and disuse to reduce organs in certain types of animals. As an example in point, we may cite the case of right-handedness among human beings. From time immemorial, the generality of mankind have consistently used the right hand in preference to the left, without any atrophy or reduction of the left hand, or over-development of the right hand, resulting from this racial practice. “The superiority of one hand,” says G. Elliot Smith, “is as old as mankind.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 570.) It is true that only about 6,000 years of human existence are known to history, but, if one accepts the most conservative estimates of glaciologists, man has had a much longer prehistory, the lowest estimates for the age of man being approximately 30,000 years. Thus W. J. Sollas tells us that the Glacial period, in which man first appeared, came to an end about 7,000 years ago, and that the men buried at Chapelle-aux-Saints in France lived about 25,000 years ago. His figures agree with those of C. F. Wright, who bases his calculations on the Niagara Gorge. The Niagara River is one of the postglacial streams, and the time required to cut its gorge has been calculated as 7,000 years. Gerard De Geer, the Swedish scientist, gives 20,000 years ago as the end of glacial and the commencement of recent or postglacial time. He bases his estimates on the sediments of the Yoldia Sea in Sweden. His method consists in the actual counting of certain seasonally-laminated clay layers, presumably left behind by the receding ice sheet of the continental glacier. The melting is registered by annual deposition, in which the thinner layers of finer sand from the winter flows alternate with thicker layers of coarser material from the summer flows. In warm years, the layers are thicker, in colder years they are thinner, so that these laminated Pleistocene clays constitute a thermographic as well as a chronological record. De Geer began his study of Pleistocene clays in 1878, and in 1920 he led an expedition to the United States, for the purpose of extending his researches. (Cf. Science, Sept. 24, 1920, pp. 284-286.) At that time, he claimed to have worked out the chronology of the past 12,000 years. His figure of 20,000 years for postglacial time, while very displeasing to that reckless foe of scientific caution and conservatism, Henry Fairfield Osborn, tallies very well with the estimates of Sollas and Wright. H. Obermaier, basing his computation on Croll’s theory that glaciation is caused by variations in the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit about the sun, which would bring about protracted winters in the hemisphere having winter, when the earth was farthest from the sun (with consequent accumulation of ice), gives 30,000 years ago as the date of the first appearance of man on earth. Father Hugues Obermaier, it may be noted, like Abbé Henri Breuil, is one of the foremost authorities on the subject of prehistoric Man. Both are Catholic priests.

All such computations of the age of man are, of course, uncertain and theoretical. Evolutionists calculate it in hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of years. After giving such a table of recklessly tremendous figures, Osborn has the hypocritical meticulosity to add that, for the sake of precision (save the mark!) the nineteen hundred and some odd years of the Christian era should be added to his figures. But, even according to the most conservative scientific estimates, as we have seen, man is said to have been in existence for 30,000 years, and the prevalence of right-handedness among men is as old as the human race. One would expect, then, to find modern man equipped with a gigantic right arm and a dwarfed left arm. In other words, man should exhibit a condition comparable to that of a lobster, which has one large and one small chela. Yet, in spite of the fact that the comparative inaction of the human left hand is supposed to have endured throughout a period of, at least, 30,000 years, this state of affairs has not resulted in the faintest trace of atrophy or retrogression. Bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, blood vessels, and all parts are of equal size in both arms and both hands. Excessive exercise may overdevelop the musculature of the right arm, but this is an individual and acquired adaptation, which is never transmitted to the offspring, e.g. the child of a blacksmith does not inherit the muscular hypertrophy of his father. Disuse, therefore, has not the efficacy which Lamarck and Darwin ascribed to it.

In fine, it must be recognized, once for all, that organisms are not-molded on a Lamarckian basis of use, nor yet on a Darwinian basis of selected utility. Expediency, in other words, is not the sole governing principle of the organic world. Neither instinctive habitude nor the struggle for existence succeeds in forcing structural adaptation of a predictable nature. Animals with different organic structure have the same instincts, e.g. monkeys with, and without, prehensile tails alike dwell in trees; while animals having the same organic structure may have different instincts, e.g. the rabbit, which burrows, and the hare, which does not, are practically identical in anatomical structure. Again, some animals are highly specialized for a function, which other animals perform without specialized organs, as is instanced in the case of moles, which possess a special burrowing apparatus, and prairie-dogs, which burrow without a specialized apparatus. Any system of evolution, which ignores the internal or hereditary factors of organic life and strives to explain all in terms of the environmental factors, encounters an insuperable obstacle in this remorseless resistance of conflicting facts.

Another flaw in the Darwinian argument from rudimentary organs is that it confounds, in many cases, apparent, with real inutility (or absence of function). Darwin and his followers frequently argued out of their ignorance, and falsely concluded that an organ was destitute of a function, merely because they had failed to discover its utility. Large numbers, accordingly, of highly serviceable organs were catalogued as vestigial or rudimentary, simply because nineteenth century science did not comprehend their indubitable utility. With the advance of present-day physiology, this list of “useless organs” is being rapidly depleted, so that the scientific days of the rudimentary organ appear to be numbered. At any rate, in arbitrarily pronouncing many important and functioning organs to be useless vestiges of a former stage in the history of the race, the Darwinians were not the friends of Science, but rather its reactionary enemies, inasmuch as they sought to discourage further investigation by their dogmatic decision that there was no function to be found. In so doing, however, they were merely exploiting the ignorance of their times in the interest of a preconceived theory, which whetted their appetite for discovering, at all costs, the presence in man of functionless organs.

Their anxiety in this direction led them to consider the whole group of organs constituting a most important regulatory and coördinative system in man and other vertebrates as so many useless vestigial organs. This system is called the cryptorhetic system and is made of internally-secreting, ductless glands, now called endocrine glands. These glands generate and instill into the blood stream certain chemical substances called hormones, which, diffusing in the blood, produce immediate stimulatory, and remote metabolic effects on special organs distant from the endocrine gland, in which the particular hormone is elaborated. As examples of such endocrine glands, we may mention the pineal gland (epiphysis), the pituitary body (hypophysis), the thyroid glands, the parathyroids, the islelets of Langerhans, the adrenal bodies (suprarenal capsules), and the interstitial cells of the gonads. The importance of these alleged useless organs is now known to be paramount. Death, for instance, will immediately ensue in man and other animals, upon extirpation of the adrenal bodies.

The late Robert Wiedersheim, it will be remembered, declared the pineal gland or epiphysis to be the surviving vestige of a “third eye” inherited from a former ancestor, in whom it opened between the parietal bones of the skull, like the median or pineal eye of certain lizards, the socket of which is the parietal foramen formed in the interparietal suture. If the argument is based on homology alone, then the coincidence in position between the human epiphysis and the median optic nerve of the lizards in question has the ordinary force of the evolutionary argument from homology. But when one attempts to reduce the epiphysis to the status of a useless vestigial rudiment, he is in open conflict with facts; for the pineal body is, in reality, an endocrine gland generating and dispersing a hormone, which is very important for the regulation of growth in general and of sexual development in particular. Hence this tiny organ in the diencephalic roof, no larger than a grain of wheat, is not a functionless rudiment, but an important functioning organ of the cryptorhetic system. We have no ground, therefore, on this score for inferring that our pineal gland functioned in former ancestors as a median eye comparable to that of the cyclops Polyphemus of Homeric fame.

In like manner, the pituitary body or hypophysis, which in man is a small organ about the size of a cherry, situated at the base of the brain, buried in the floor of the skull, and lying just behind the optic chiasma, was formerly rated as a rudimentary organ. It was, in fact, regarded as the vestigial remnant of a former connection between the neural and alimentary canals, reminiscent of the invertebrate stage. “The phylogenetic explanation of this organ generally accepted,” says Albert P. Mathews, “is that formerly the neural canal connected at this point with the alimentary canal. A probable and almost the only explanation of this, though an explanation almost universally rejected by zoölogists, is that of Gaskell, who has maintained that the vertebrate alimentary canal is a new structure, and that the old invertebrate canal is the present neural canal. The infundibulum, on this view, would correspond to the old invertebrate œsophagus, the ventricle of the thalamus to the invertebrate stomach, and the canal originally connected posteriorly with the anus. The anterior lobe of the pituitary body could then correspond to some glandular adjunct of the invertebrate canal, and the nervous part to a portion of the original circumœsophageal nervous ring of the invertebrates.” (“Physiological Chemistry,” 2nd ed., 1916, pp. 641, 642.)

This elaborate piece of evolutionary contortion calls for no comment here. We are only interested in the fact that this wild and weird speculation was originally inspired by the false assumption that the hypophysis was a functionless organ. As a matter of fact, it is the source of two important hormones. The one generated in its anterior lobe is tethelin, a metabolic hormone, which promotes the growth of the body in general and of the bony tissue in particular. Hypertrophy and overfunction of this gland produces giantism, or acromegaly (enlargement of hands, feet, and skull), while atrophy and underfunction of the anterior lobe results in infantilism, acromikria (diminution of extremities, i. e. hands, feet, head), obesity, and genital dystrophy (i. e. suppression of secondary sexual characters). The posterior lobe of the pituitary body constitutes, with the pars intermedia, a second endocrine gland, which generates a stimulatory hormone called pituitrin. This hormone stimulates unstriated muscle to contract, and thereby regulates the discharge of secretions from various glands of the body, e. g. the mammary glands, bladder, etc. Hence the hypophysis, far from being a useless organ, is an indispensable one. Moreover, it is an integral and important part of the cryptorhetic system.

The same story may be repeated of the thyroid glands. These consist of two lobes located on either side of the windpipe, just below the larynx (Adam’s apple), and joined together across the windpipe by a narrow band or isthmus of their own substance. Gaskell homologized them with a gland in scorpions, and Mathew says that, if his surmise is correct, “the thyroid represents an accessory sexual organ of the invertebrate.” (Op. cit., p. 654.) They are, however, endocrine glands, that generate a hormone known as thyroxin, which regulates the body-temperature, growth of the body in general, and of the nervous system in particular, etc., etc. Atrophy or extirpation of these glands causes cretinism in the young and myxoedema in adults. Without a sufficient supply of this hormone, the normal exercise of mental powers in human beings is impossible. The organ, therefore, is far from being a useless vestige of what was formerly useful.

George Howard Parker, the Zoölogist of Harvard, sums up the case against the Darwinian interpretation of the endocrine glands as follows: “The extent to which hormones control the body is only just beginning to be appreciated. For a long time anatomists have recognized in the higher animals, including man, a number of so-called ductless glands, such as the thyroid gland, the pineal gland, the hypophysis, the adrenal bodies, and so forth. These have often been passed over as unimportant functionless organs whose presence was to be explained as an inheritance from some remote ancestor. But such a conception is far from correct. If the thyroids are removed from a dog, death follows in from one to four weeks. If the adrenal bodies are excised, the animal dies in from two to three days. Such results show beyond doubt that at least some of these organs are of vital importance, and more recent studies have demonstrated that most of them produce substances which have all the properties of hormones.” (“Biology and Social Problems,” 1914, pp. 43, 44.)

Even the vermiform appendix of the cæcum, which since Darwin’s time has served as a classic example of a rudimentary organ in man, is, in reality, not a functionless organ. Darwin, however, was of opinion that it was not only useless, but positively harmful. “With respect to the alimentary canal,” he says, “I have met with an account of only a single rudiment, namely, the vermiform appendage of the cæcum. ... Not only is it useless, but it is sometimes the cause of death, of which fact I have lately heard two instances. This is due to small hard bodies, such as seeds, entering the passage and causing inflammation.” (“Descent of Man,” 2nd ed., ch. I, pp. 39, 40.) The idea that seeds cause appendicitis is, of course, an exploded superstition, the hard bodies sometimes found in the appendix being fecal concretions and not seeds—“The old idea,” says Dr. John B. Deaver, “that foreign bodies, such as grape seeds, are the cause of the disease, has been disproved.” (Encycl. Americana, vol. 2, p. 76.) What is more germane to the point at issue, however, is that Darwin erred in denying the utility of the vermiform appendix. For, although this organ does not discharge in man the important function which its homologue discharges in grain-eating birds and also in herbivorous mammals, it subserves the secondary function of lubricating the intestines by means of a secretion from its muciparous glands.

Darwin gives the semilunar fold as another instance of a vestigial organ, claiming that it is a persistent rudiment of a former third eyelid or membrana nictitans, such as we find in birds. “The nictitating membrane, or third eyelid,” he says, “with its accessory muscles and other structures, is especially well developed in birds, and is of much functional importance to them, as it can be rapidly drawn across the whole eyeball. It is found in some reptiles and amphibians, and in certain fishes as in sharks. It is fairly well developed in the two lower divisions of the mammalian series, namely, in the monotremata and marsupials, and in some higher mammals, as in the walrus. But in man, the quadrumana, and most other mammals, it exists, as is admitted by all anatomists, as a mere rudiment, called the semilunar fold.” (Op. cit., ch. I, pp. 35, 36.) Here Darwin is certainly wrong about his facts; for the so-called third eyelid is not well developed in the two lower divisions of the mammalian series (i.e. the monotremes and the marsupials) nor in any other mammalian type. “With but few exceptions,” says Remy Perrier, “the third eyelid is not so complete as among the birds; (in the mammals) it never covers the entire eye. For the rest, it is not really perceptible except in certain types, like the dog, the ruminants, and, still more so, the horse. In the rest (of the mammals) it is less developed.” (“Elements d’anatomie comparée,” Paris, 1893, p. 1137.) Moreover, Darwin’s suggestion leaves us at sea as to the ancestor, from whom our “rudimentary third eyelid” has been inherited. His mention of birds as having a well developed third eyelid is not very helpful, because all evolutionists agree in excluding the birds from our line of descent. The reptiles are more promising candidates for the position of ancestors, but, as no trace of a third eyelid could possibly be left behind in the imperfect record of the fossiliferous rocks (soft parts like this having but slight chance of preservation), we do not really know whether the palæozoic reptiles possessed this particular feature, or not. Nor can we argue from analogy and induction, because not all modern reptiles are equipped with third eyelids. Hence the particular group of palæozoic reptiles, which are supposed to have been our progenitors, may not have possessed any third eyelid to bequeath to us in the reduced and rudimentary form of the plica semilunaris. If it be replied, that they must have had this feature, because otherwise we would have no ancestor from whom we could inherit our semilunar fold, it is obvious that such argumentation assumes the very point which it ought to prove, namely: the actuality of evolution. Rudiments are supposed to be a proof for evolution, and not, vice versa, evolution a proof for rudiments.

Finally, the basic assumption of Darwin that the semilunar fold is destitute of function is incorrect; for this crescent-shaped fold situated in the inner or nasal corner of the eye of man and other mammals serves to regulate the flow of the lubricating lacrimal fluid (which we call tears). True this function is secondary compared with the more important function discharged by the nictitating membrane in birds. In the latter, the third eyelid is a pearly-white (sometimes transparent) membrane placed internal to the real eyelids, on the inner side of the eye, over whose surface it can be drawn like a curtain to shield the organ from excessive light, or irritating dust; nevertheless, the regulation of the flow of lacrimal humor is a real function, and it is therefore entirely false to speak of the semilunar fold as a functionless rudiment.

The coccyx is likewise cited by Darwin as an example of an inherited rudiment in man. “In man,” he says, “the os coccyx, together with certain other vertebræ hereafter to be described, though functionless as a tail, plainly represents this part in other vertebrate animals.” (Op. cit., ch. I, p. 42.) That it serves no purpose as a tail, may be readily admitted, but that it serves no purpose whatever, is quite another matter. As a matter of fact, it serves for the attachment of several small muscles, whose functioning would be impossible in the absence of this bone. Darwin himself concedes this; for he confesses that the four vertebræ of the coccyx “are furnished with some small muscles.” (Ibidem.) We may, therefore, admit the homology between the human coccyx and the tails of other vertebrates, without being forced to regard the latter as a useless vestigial organ. It may be objected that the attachment of these muscles might have been provided for in a manner more in harmony with our ideas of symmetry. To this we reply that Helmholtz criticized the human eye for similar reasons, when he said that he would remand to his workshop for correction an optical instrument so flawed with defects as the human eye. But, after all, it was by the use of these selfsame imperfect eyes that Helmholtz was enabled to detect the flaws of which he complained. When man shall have fully fathomed the difficulties and obstructions with which organic morphogeny has to contend in performing its wonderful work, and shall have arrived at an elementary knowledge of the general laws of morphogenetic mechanics, he will be more inclined to admire than to criticize. It is a mistake to imagine that the finite works of the Creator must be perfect from every viewpoint. It suffices that they are perfect with respect to the particular purpose which they serve, and this purpose must not be narrowly estimated from the standpoint of the created work itself, but from that of its position in the universal scheme of creation. All such partial views as the Helmholtzian one are false views.

Another consideration which Darwin and his partisans have failed to take into account is the possibility of an ontogenetic, as well as a phylogenetic, explanation of rudimentary organs. That is to say, rudimentary organs might, so far as a priori reasons are concerned, be the now useless vestiges of organs formerly developed and functional in the fœtus, and need not necessarily be interpreted as traces of organs that functioned formerly in remote racial ancestors. That there should be such things as special fœtal organs, which atrophy in later adult life, is a possibility that ought not to excite surprise. During its uterine existence, the fœtus is subject to peculiar conditions of life, very different from those which prevail in the case of adult organisms—e.g. respiration and the digestive process are suspended, and there is a totally different kind of circulation. What, then, more natural than that the fœtus should require special organs to adapt it to these special conditions of uterine life? Such organs, while useful and functional in the earlier stages of embryonic development, will, so soon as birth and maturity introduce new conditions of life, become superfluous, and therefore doomed, in the interest of organic economy, to ultimate atrophy and degeneration, until nothing is left of them but vestigial remnants.

The thymus may be cited as a probable instance of such an organ. This organ, which is located in front of the heart and behind the breastbone, in the region between the two lungs, consists, at the period of its greatest development in man, of a two-lobed structure, 5 cm. long and 4 cm. wide, with a thickness of 6 mm. and a maximum weight of 35 grams. It is supplied with numerous lymphoid cells, which are aggregated to form lymphoid follicles (cf. Gray’s “Anatomy,” 20th ed., 1918, pp. 1273, 1274; Burton-Opitz’ “Physiology,” 1920, p. 964). This organ is a transitory one, well developed at birth, but degenerating, according to some authors, after the second year of life (cf. Starling’s “Physiology,” 3rd ed., 1920, p. 1245); according to others, however, not until the period of full maturity, namely, puberty. (Cf. Gray’s “Anatomy,” loc. cit.) W. H. Howell cites both opinions, without venturing to decide the matter (cf. his “Physiology,” 8th ed., 1921, pp. 869, 870). It was at one time classified as a rudimentary or functionless organ. Later on, however, it was thought by certain observers to be an endocrine gland, yielding a secretion important for the growth of young mammals. This took it out of the class of useless vestigial organs, but the recent discovery that it is indispensable to birds as furnishing a secretion necessary for the formation of the tertiary envelopes (egg membrane and shell) of their eggs, has tended to revive the idea of its being a vestigial organ inherited from the lower vertebrates.

Thus Dr. Oscar Riddle, while admitting that the thymus gland in man has some influence on the growth of the bones, contends that the newly-discovered function of this gland in birds is much more important, since without it none of the vertebrates, excepting mammals, could reproduce their young. “It thus becomes clear,” he says, “that though the thymus is almost without use in the human being, it is in fact a sort of ‘mother of the race.’ The higher animals could not have come into existence without it. For even while our ancestors lived in the water, it was the thymus of these ancestors which made possible the production of the egg-envelopes within which the young were cradled and protected until they were ready for an independent life.” (Science, Dec. 28, 1923, Suppl. XIII, XIV.)

This conclusion, however, is far too hasty. For, even if we disregard as negligible the minor function, that Riddle assigns to the thymus in man, there remains another possibility, which H. H. Wilder takes into account, namely, that the thymus may, in certain cases, be a temporary substitute for the lymphatic vessels. Having called attention to certain determinate channels found in some of the lower vertebrates, he tells us that these “can well be utilized as adjuncts of the lymphatic system until their function can be supplied by definite lymphatic vessels.” He then resumes his discussion of the lymph nodules in mammals as follows: “Aside from the solitary and aggregated nodules, both of which appear to be centers of origin of lymphocytes, there are numerous other places in which the cellular constituents of the blood are developed. Many of these, as in the case of the aggregated nodules of the intestines, are developed within the wall of the alimentary canal and are therefore endodermic in origin. These include the tonsils, the thymus, and thyroid glands, the associated epithelial bodies, and, perhaps, the spleen.... In their function as formative nidi for the cellular elements of the blood these organs form physiologically important auxiliaries to the vascular system as a whole, but belong elsewhere in their anatomical developmental affinities.” (“History of the Human Body,” 2nd ed., 1923, p. 395—italics mine.)

This being the case, it is much more reasonable to interpret the thymus as an ontogenetic (embryonic), rather than a phylogenetic (racial) rudiment. It has been observed that, in the case of reptiles which lack definite lymphatic glands (which function in man as formative centers of lymphocytes or white blood corpuscles), the thymus is extraordinarily developed and abounds in lymphoid cells. It has also been observed that the formation of lymphocytes in the lymphatic glands is regulated by the digestive process; for, after digestion, the activity of these glands increases and the formation of leucocytes is accelerated. Since, then, the lymphatic glands appear to require the stimulus of the digestive process to incite them to action, it is clear that in the fœtus, which lacks the digestive process, the lymphatic glands will not be stimulated to action, and that the task of furnishing lymphocytes will devolve upon the thymus. After birth, the digestive process commences and the lymphatic glands become active in response to this stimulus. As the function of forming lymphocytes is transferred from the thymus to the lymphatic glands, the former is gradually deprived of its importance, and, in the interest of organic economy, it begins to atrophy, until, at the end of the child’s second year, or, at latest, when the child has reached sexual maturity, nothing but a reduced vestige remains of this once functional organ. “The thymus,” says Starling, “forms two large masses in the anterior mediastinum which in man grow up to the second year of life and then rapidly diminish, so that only traces are to be found at puberty. It contains a large amount of lymphatic tissue and is therefore often associated with the lymphatic glands as the seat of the formation of lymph corpuscles.... In certain cases of arrested development or of general weakness in young people, the thymus has been found to be persistent.” (“Physiology,” 3rd ed., 1920, p. 1245.)

In the light of these facts, it is utterly unreasonable to regard the thymus as a practically useless rudiment inherited from the lower vertebrates. “That they have an important function in the young animal,” says Albert Mathews, “can hardly be doubted.” (“Physiological Chemistry,” 1916, p. 675.) In fact, the peculiar nature of their development in the young and their atrophy in the adult forces such a conclusion upon us. The thymus, therefore, is, in all probability, an ontogenetic, and not a phylogenetic, rudiment. It might conceivably be exploited as a biogenetic recapitulation of a reptilian stage in man, just as the so-called fish-kidney of the human embryo is exploited for evolutionary interpretation. The principles by which such a view may be refuted have been given previously. But, in any case, it is folly to interpret the thymus as a rudiment in the racial, rather than embryonic sense. Moreover, the possibility of an ontogenetic interpretation of rudiments must not be restricted to the thymus, but must be accepted as a general and legitimate alternative for the phylogenetic interpretation.

In the last place, it remains for us to consider the Darwinian argument, based upon so-called rudimentary organs, from the standpoint of the science of genetics. Darwin, as we have remarked elsewhere, was ignorant of the non-inheritability of those inconstant individual variations now known as fluctuations. He was somewhat perplexed, when Professor L. Meyer pointed out the extreme variability in position of the “projecting point” on the margin of the human ear, but he still clung to his original contention that this “blunt point” was a surviving vestige of the apex of the pointed ears found in donkeys and horses, etc. “Nevertheless,” he says, “in some cases my original view, that the points are vestiges of the tips of formerly erect and pointed ears, still seems to be probable.” (“Descent of Man,” 2nd ed., ch. I, p. 34.) Darwin, as Ranke points out, was mistaken in homologizing his famous “tubercule” with the apex of bestial ears. “The acute extremity of the pointed animal ear,” says this author, “does not correspond to this prominence designated by Darwin, but to the vertex of the helix.” (“Der Mensch,” II, p. 39.) The feature in question is, moreover, a mere fluctuation due to the degree of development attained by the cartilage: hence its variability in different human beings. In very extreme cases, fluctuations of this sort, may be important enough to constitute an anomaly, and, as anomalies are often interpreted as atavisms and reversions to a primitive type, it may be well to advert to this subject here.

Dwight has an excellent chapter on anatomical variations and anomalies. (Cf. “Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist,” 1911, ch. IX.) He tells us that “a thigh bone a little more bent, an ear a little more pointed, a nose a little more projecting ... a little more or a little less of anything you please—this is variation.” “An anatomical anomaly,” he says, “is some peculiarity of any part of the body which cannot be expressed in terms of more or less, but is distinctly new.” He divides the latter into two classes, namely: those which consist in the repetition of one or more elements in a series, e.g. the occurrence of supernumerary legs in an insect, and those which consist in the suppression of one or more elements in a series, e.g. the occurrence of eleven pairs of ribs in a man. Variations and anomalies are fluctuational or mutational, according as they are based on changes in the soma alone, or on changes in the germ plasm. Variations, however, are more likely to be non-inheritable fluctuations, and anomalies to be inheritable mutations. We shall speak of the latter presently. In the meantime we may note that the main trouble with interpreting these anatomical irregularities as “reversive” or “atavistic” is that they would connect man with all sorts of quite impossible lines of descent. “In my early days of anatomy,” says Dwight, “I thought that I must be very ignorant, because I could not understand how the occasional appearance in man of a peculiarity of some animal outside of any conceivable line of descent could be called a reversion, as it soon became the custom to call it.... It was only later that I grasped the fact that the reason I could not understand these things was that there was nothing to understand. It was sham science from beginning to end.” (Op. cit., p. 209.) By way of anomaly, almost any human peculiarity can occur in animals, and, conversely, any bestial peculiarity in man, but the resemblance to man of an animal outside of the alleged line of human descent represents a grave difficulty for the theory of evolution, and not an argument in its favor.

The human body is certainly not a mosaic of heterogenetic organs, i.e. a complex of structures inherited from any and every sort of animal, whether extant or extinct; for such a vast number and variety of ancestors could not possibly have coöperated to produce man. Prof. D. Carazzi, in his Address of Inauguration in the Chair of Zoölogy and Comparative Anatomy at the University of Padua, Jan. 20, 1906, excoriated with scathing irony the sham Darwinian science, of which Dwight complains. “But even in the serious works of pure science,” says the Italian zoölogist, “we read, for example, that the over-development of the postauricular muscles sometimes observed in man is an atavistic reminiscence of the muscles of the helix of the ear of the horse and the ass. And so far so good, because it gives evidence of great modesty in recognizing as our ancestors those well-deserving and long-eared quadrupeds. But this is not all; there appear at times in a woman one or more anomalous mammary glands below the pectoral ones; and here, too, they insist on explaining the anomaly as a reversion to type, that is, as an atavistic reminiscence of the numerous mammary glands possessed by different lower mammals; the bitch, for example....

“But the supernumerary mammary glands are not a reversion to type; anomalous mammary glands may appear upon the median line, upon the deltoid, and even upon the knee, regions far-distant from the ‘milk-line.’ So with regard to the postauricular muscles we must say that according to the laws of Darwinism the cases of anomalous development are not interpretable as reversions to type. All these features are not phylogenetic reminiscences, but anomalies of development, of such a nature that, if we should wish to make use of them for establishing the line of human descent, we would have to say that man descends from the swine, from the solipeds and even from the cetaceans, returning, namely, to the old conception of lineal descent, that is, to Buffon’s idea of the concatenation of creatures.” (“Teorie e critiche nella moderna biologia,” 1906.)

Darwin’s doctrine, however, on the origin and significance of rudimentary organs has been damaged by genetic analysis in a yet more serious fashion. In fact, with the discovery that anomalous suppression and anomalous duplication of organs may result from factorial mutation, this Darwinian conception received what is tantamount to its deathblow. Darwin, it will be remembered, was convinced that the regression of organs was brought about by “increased disuse controlled by natural selection.” (Cf. “Origin of Species,” 6th ed., ch. V.) Such phenomena, he thought, as the suppression of wings in the Apteryx and the reduction of wings in running birds, arose from their “inhabiting ocean islands,” where they “have not been exposed to the attacks of beasts, and consequently lost the power of using their wings for flight.” (“Descent of Man,” 6th ed., ch. I, p. 32.) In some cases, he believed that disuse and natural selection had coöperated ex aequo to produce results of this nature, e.g. the reduction of the eyes in the mole and in Ctenomys; for this reduction, he claims, has some selection-value, inasmuch as reduction of the eyes, adhesion of the lids, and covering with hair tends to protect the unused and useless eye against inflammation. In other cases, however, he is inclined to discount the idea that suppression of organs is an “effect of long-continued disuse,” and to regard the phenomenon as “wholly, or mainly, due to natural selection,” e.g. in the case of the wingless beetles of the island of Madeira. “For during successive generations,” he reasons, “each individual beetle which flew least, either from its wings having been ever so little less developed or from indolent habit, will have had the best chance of surviving from not being blown out to sea; and, on the other hand, those beetles which most readily took to flight would oftenest have been blown to sea, and thus destroyed.” In a third class of instances, however, he assigns the principal rôle to disuse, e.g. in the case of the blind animals “which inhabit the caves of Carniola and Kentucky, because,” as he tells us, “it is difficult to imagine that eyes, though useless, could be injurious to animals living in darkness.” Hence he concludes that, as the obliteration of eyes has no selection-value, under the circumstances prevailing in dark caves, “their loss may be attributed to disuse.” (Cf. “Origin of Species,” 6th ed., ch. V, pp. 128-133.)

Morgan’s comment on these elaborate speculations of Darwin is very caustic and concise. Referring to factorial mutations, which give rise to races of flies having supernumerary and vestigial organs, he says: “In contrast to the last case, where a character is doubled, is the next one in which the eyes are lost. This change took place at a single step. All the flies of this stock, however, cannot be said to be eyeless, since many of them show pieces of eye—indeed the variation is so wide that the eye may even appear like a normal eye unless carefully examined. Formerly we were taught that eyeless animals arose in caves. This case shows that they may also arise suddenly in glass milk bottles, by a change in a single factor.

“I may recall in this connection that wingless flies also arose in our cultures by a single mutation. We used to be told that wingless insects occurred on desert islands because those insects that had the best developed wings were blown out to sea. Whether this is true or not, I will not pretend to say, but at any rate wingless insects may also arise, not through a slow process of elimination, but at a single step.” (“A Critique of the Theory of Evolution,” 1916, pp. 66, 67.)

In directing attention to the fact that a permanent and inheritable reduction of organs to the vestigial state can result from mutation, we do not, of course, intend to exclude the possible occurrence of somatic atrophy due to lack of exercise rather than to germinal change. Thus the blind species of animals in caves may, in some instances, be persistently blind, because of the persistent darkness of the environment in which they live, and not by reason of any inherited factor for blindness. Darwin gives one such instance, namely, that of the cave rat Neotoma. To test such cases, the blind animals would have to be bred in an illuminated environment. If, under this condition, they failed to develop normal eyes, the blindness would be due to a germinal factor, and would be inherited in an illumined, no less than a dark, environment.

In any case, a mutation which suppresses a character is not, as we have seen, a specific change, but merely one of the varietal order, which does not result in the production of a genuine new species. The factorial mutant with a vestigial wing or eye belongs to the same species as its wild or normal parent stock. Moreover, neither disuse nor natural selection has the slightest power to induce mutations of this kind. If mutation be the cause of the blindness of cave animals, then their presence in such caves must be accounted for by supposing that they migrated thither because they found in the cave a most suitable environment for safety, foraging, etc. Darkness alone, however, could never induce germinal, but, at most, merely somatic blindness. The Lamarckian factor of disuse and the Darwinian factor of selection have been definitely discredited as agents which could bring about hereditarily-transmissible modifications.

All efforts, then, to establish, by means of anatomical and embryological homologies, the lineal descent of man from any known type of monkey or ape have ended in ignominious failure. Comparative anatomy and embryology can, at most, only furnish grounds for extremely vague and indefinite speculations regarding the descent of man, but they can never become a basis for specific conclusions with respect to the phylogeny of Homo sapiens. Every known form of ape, whether extant or extinct, is, as we have seen, far too specialized in its adaptation to arboreal life to pass muster as a feasible ancestor. The only conceivable manner in which the human body could be related to simian stock is by way of collateral descent, and the only means of proving such descent is to adduce a series of intermediate fossil types connecting modern men and modern apes with this alleged common ancestor of both. “The ascent (sic) of man as one of the Primates,” says Henry Fairfield Osborn, “was parallel with that of the families of apes. Man has a long line of ancestry of his own, perhaps two million or more years in length. He is not descended from any known form of ape either living or fossil.” (The Ill. London News, Jan. 8, 1921, p. 40.)

This theory of a hypothetical primate ancestor of man, which is supposed to have inhabited the earth during the earlier part of the Tertiary period, and to have presented a more man-like appearance than any known type of ape, was first propounded by Karl Snell in 1863. It was popularized at the beginning of the present century by Klaatsch, who saw in it a means of escape from the absurdities and perplexities of the theory of lineal descent—“the less,” says the latter, “an ape has changed from its original form, just so much the more human it appears.” This saying is revamped by Kohlbrugge to read: “Man comes from an original form much more like himself than any existing ape.” Kohlbrugge’s comment is as follows: “The line of descent of man thus receives on the side of the primates a quite different form from its previous-one. Such new hypotheses as those of Hubrecht and Klaatsch seem, therefore, fortunate for nature-philosophers, because evolution always failed us when we compared known forms in their details, and led us only to confusion. But if one works with such distant hypothetical ancestors, one escapes much disillusioning.” (Quoted by Dwight, op. cit., p. 195.)

One thing, at any rate, is certain, namely: that we do not possess any fossils of this primitive “large brained, erectly walking primate,” who is alleged to have roamed the earth during the eocene or oligocene epoch. The Foxhall Man, whose culture Osborn ascribes to the Upper Pliocene, is far too recent, and, what is worse, far too intelligent, to be this Tertiary Ancestor. The Pithecanthropus erectus, likewise, is excluded for reasons which we shall presently consider. Meanwhile, let it be noted, that we have Osborn’s assurance for the fact that we are descended from a brainy and upright oligocene ancestor, as yet, however, undiscovered.

But the situation is more hopeful, if we hark back to a still more remote period, whose remains are so scarce and fragmentary, as to eliminate the possibility of embarrassment arising from intractable details. “Back of this,” says Osborn, “ ... was a prehuman arboreal stage.” (Loc. cit.) Here, then, we are back again in the same old rut of tree-climbing simian ancestry, whence we thought to have escaped by abandoning the theory of lineal descent; and, before we have time to speculate upon how we got there, Prof. Wm. Gregory of the American Museum is summoned by Osborn to present us with specimens of this prehuman arboreal stage. This expert, it would seem, favored up till the year 1923 the fossil jaw of the Propliopithecus as representing the common root, whence the human race diverged, on one side, and the races of anthropoid apes, on the other. (Cf. Osborn’s Museum-leaflet of 1923 on “The Hall of the Age of Man,” p. 29.) On April 14, 1923, however, Gregory announced the deposition of Propliopithecus and the enthronement of the jaw of Dryopithecus. This sudden accession of Dryopithecus to the post of common ancestor of apes and men was due to the discovery by Dr. Barnum Brown of three fossil jaws of Dryopithecus in the Miocene deposits of the Siwalik beds in northern India. By some rapturous coincidence, the three jaws in question happen to come from three successive “horizons,” and to be representative of just three different stages in the evolution of Dryopithecus. Doctor Gregory finds, moreover, that the patterns of the minute cracks and furrows on the surviving molar teeth correspond to those on the surface of the enamels of modern ape and human teeth. Hence, with that ephemeral infallibility, which is characteristic of authorities like Doctor Gregory, and which is proof against all discouragement by reason of past blunders, the one who told us but a year ago that the cusps of all the teeth of Propliopithecus “are exactly such as would be expected in the common starting point for the divergent lines leading to the gibbons, to the higher apes, and to man” (loc. cit.), now tells us that both we and the apes have inherited our teeth from Dryopithecus, who had heretofore remained neglected on the side-lines. In 1923, apparently, Dr. Gregory was unimpressed with the crown patterns of Dryopithecus, whose jaw he then excluded from the direct human line. (Cf. Museum-leaflet, p. 5.) Now, however, that the new discoveries have brought Dryopithecus into the limelight, and, particularly because these jaws were found in Miocene deposits, Gregory has shifted his favor from Propliopithecus to Dryopithecus. (Cf. Science, April 25, 1924, suppl. XIII.)

When palæontologists are obliged to do a volte face of this sort, one ought not to scoff. One ought to be an optimist, and eschew above all the spirit of the English statesman, who, on hearing a learned lecture by Pearson on the question of whether Man was descended from hylobatic, or troglodytic stock, was guilty of the following piece of impatience: “I am not particularly interested in the descent of man ... this scientific pursuit of the dead bones of the past does not seem to me a very useful way of spending life. I am accustomed to this mode of study; learned volumes have been written in Sanscrit to explain the conjunction of the two vowels ‘a’ and ‘u’. It is very learned, very ingenious, but not very helpful.... I am not concerned with my genealogy so much as with my future. Our intellects can be more advantageously employed than in finding our diversity from the ape.... There may be no spirit, no soul; there is no proof of their existence. If that is so, let us do away with shams and live like animals. If, on the other hand, there is a soul to be looked after, let us all strain our nerves to the task; there is no use in digging into the sands of time for the skeletons of the past; build your man for the future.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1921, pp. 432, 433.) It is to be hoped, however, that this reactionary spirit is confined to the few, and that the accession of this new primitive ancestor will be hailed with general satisfaction. At any rate, we can wish him well, and trust that the fossilized jaw of Dryopithecus will not lose caste so speedily as that of Propliopithecus.

Propliopithecus, or Dryopithecus? Hylobatic, or troglodytic affinities? Such questions are scarcely the pivots on which the world is turned! Nevertheless, we rejoice that Doctor Gregory has again settled the former problem (provisorily, at least) to his own satisfaction. More important, however, than that of the dentition of Dryopithecus, is the crucial question of whether or not Palæontology is able to furnish evidence of man’s genetic continuity with this primitive pithecoid root. Certainly, no effort has been spared to procure the much desired proofs of our reputed bestial ancestry. The Tertiary deposits of Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and the oceanic islands have been diligently ransacked for fossil facts that would be susceptible to an evolutionary interpretation. The aprioristic criterion that all large-brained men are recent, and all small-brained men with recessive chins are necessarily ancient, has always been employed in evaluating the fossil evidence. Notwithstanding all endeavors, however, to bring about the consummation so devoutly desired, the facts discovered not only fail to support the theory of collateral descent, but actually militate against it. For assuming that man and the anthropoid apes constitute two distinct lines of evolution branching out from common Tertiary or pre-Tertiary stock, palæontology should be able to show numerous intermediate fossil forms, not alone for the lateral branch of the apes, but also, and especially, for the lateral line connecting modern men with the common root of the primate tree. But it is precisely in this latter respect that the fossil evidence for collateral descent fails most egregiously. Palæontology knows of many fossil genera and species of apes and lemurs, that might conceivably represent links in a genetic chain connecting modern monkeys with Tertiary stock, but it has yet to discover so much as a single fossil species, much less a fossil genus, intermediate between man, as we know him, and this alleged Tertiary ancestor common to apes and men.

Not even catastrophism can be invoked to save this irremediable situation; for any catastrophe that would have swept away the human links would likewise have swept away the ape links. The presence of many genera and species of fossil apes, in contrast to the absence of any fossil genus or species of man distinct from Homo sapiens, is irreconcilable with the theory of collateral descent. Such is the dilemma proposed to the upholders of this theory by Wasmann, in the 10th chapter of his “Die Moderne Biologie” (3rd edition, 1906), a dilemma, from which, as we shall see, their every attempt to extricate themselves has failed most signally.

“But what,” asked Wasmann, “has palæontology to say concerning this question? It tells us that, up to the present, no connecting link between man and the ape has been found; and, indeed, according to the theory of Klaatsch, it is absurd to speak of a link of direct connection between these two forms, but it tells us much more than this. It shows us, on the basis of the results of the most recent research, that we know the genealogical tree of the various apes, a tree very rich in species, which extends from the present as far back as the hypothetical primitive form assigned to the earliest part of the Tertiary period; and, in fact, in Zittel’s work, “Grundzüge der Paläontologie” (1895), not less than thirty genera of fossil Pro-simiæ and eighteen genera of genuine fossil apes are enumerated, the which have been entombed in those strata of the earth that intervene between the Lower Eocene and the Alluvial epoch, but between this hypothetical primitive form and man of the present time we do not find a single connecting link. The entire genealogical tree of man does not show so much as one fossil genus, or even one fossil species.” (Op. cit., italics his.) A brief consideration of the principal fossil remains, in which certain palæontologists profess to see evidence of a transition between man and the primitive pithecoid stock, will serve to verify Wasmann’s statement, and will reveal the fact that all the alleged connecting links are distinctly human, or purely simian, or merely mismated combinations of human and simian remains.

(1) Pithecanthropus erectus: In 1891 Eugène Dubois, a Dutch army surgeon, discovered in Java, at Trinil, in the Ngawa district of the Madiun Residency, a calvarium (skull-cap), 2 upper molars and a femur, in the central part of an old river bed. The four fragments, however, were not all found in the same year, because the advent of the rainy season compelled him to suspend the work of excavation. “The teeth,” to quote Dubois himself, “were distant from the skull from one to, at most, three meters; the femur was fifteen meters (50 feet) away.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1898, p. 447.) Dubois judged the lapilli stratum, in which the bones were found, to be older than the Pleistocene, and older, perhaps, than the most recent zones of the Pliocene series. “The Trinil ape-man,” says Osborn, “ ... is the first of the conundrums of human ancestry. Is the Trinil race prehuman or not?” (Loc. cit., p. 40.) Certainly, Lower Pleistocene, or Upper Pliocene represents too late a time for the appearance of the upright primate, whence we are said to have sprung. Even Miocene would be too late a date for our alleged divergence from the primitive arboreal stock.

Of the capacity of the calvarium, Dubois says: “I found the above-mentioned cavity measured 550 c.cm. The cast of the cavity of the Neanderthal skull taken to the same plane measures 750 c.cm.” (Loc. cit., p. 450, footnote.) His first estimate of the total cranial capacity of Pithecanthropus was 1000 c.cm., but, later on, when he decided to reconstruct the skull on the basis of the cranium of a gibbon (Hylobates agilis) rather than that of a chimpanzee (Troglodytes niger), he reduced his estimate of the cranial capacity to 900 c.cm. Recently, it is rumored, he has increased the latter estimate, as a sequel to his having removed by means of a dentist’s tool all the siliceous matter adhering to the skull-cap. As regards shape, the calvarium seems to resemble most closely the cranial vault of gibbon. This similarity, as we have seen, led Dubois to reconstruct the skull on hylobatic lines—“the skull of Hylobates agilis,” says Dubois, “ ... strikingly resembles that of Pithecanthropus.” (Loc. cit., p. 450, footnote.) The craniologist Macnamara, it is true, claims that the skull-cap most closely approximates the Troglodyte type. Speaking of the calvarium of Pithecanthropus, the latter says: “The cranium of an average adult male chimpanzee and the Java cranium are so closely related that I believe them to belong to the same family of animals—i.e. to the true apes.” (Archiv. für Anthropologie, XXVIII, 1903, pp. 349-360.) The large cranial capacity, however, would seem to favor Dubois’ interpretation, seeing that gibbons have, in proportion to their bodies, twice as large a brain as the huge Troglodyte apes, namely, the chimpanzee and the gorilla. The maximum cranial capacity for any ape is from 500 to 600 c.cm. Hence, with 900 c.cm. of cranial capacity estimated by Dubois, the Pithecanthropus stands midway between the ape and the Neanderthal Man, a human dwarf, whose cranial capacity Huxley estimated at 1,236 c.cm. This consideration, however, does not of itself entitle the Pithecanthropus to be regarded as a connecting link between man and the anthropoid apes. In all such comparisons, it is the relative, and not the absolute, size of the brain, which is important. The elephant for example, has as large a brain as a man, but the elephant’s brain is small, in comparison to its huge body. The brain of a mouse is insignificant, as regards absolute size, but, considered in relation to the size of the mouse’s body, it is as large as, if not larger than, that of an elephant, and hence the elephant, for all the absolute magnitude of its brain, is no more “intelligent” than a mouse. As we have already seen, man’s brain is unique, not for its absolute size, but for its weight and enormous cortical surface, considered with reference to the comparatively small organism controlled by the brain in question. It is this excess in size which manifests the specialization of the human brain for psychic functions. The Weddas, a dwarf race of Ceylon, have a far smaller cranial capacity than the Neanderthal Man, their average cranial capacity being 960 c.cm., but they are human pigmies, whereas the Pithecanthropus, according to Richard Hertwig, was a giant ape. “The fragments,” says Hertwig, “were regarded by some as belonging to a connecting link between apes and man, Pithecanthropus erectus Dubois; by others they were thought to be the remains of genuine apes, and by others those of genuine men. The opinion that is most probably correct is that the fragments belonged to an anthropoid ape of extraordinary size and enormous cranial capacity.” (“Lehrbuch der Zoologie,” 7th ed.)

Prof. J. H. McGregor essays to make a gradational series out of conjectural brain casts of a large ape, the Pithecanthropus and the Neanderthal Man, in the ratio of 6: 9: 12, this ratio being based upon the estimated cranial capacities of the skulls in question. In a previous chapter, we have seen that such symmetrically graded series have little force as an argument for common descent. In the present instance, however, the gradation gives a wrong impression of the real state of affairs. If Doctor McGregor had taken into account the all-important consideration of relative size, he would not have been able to construct this misleading series. This consideration, however, did not escape Dubois himself, and in his paper of Dec. 14, 1896, before the Berlin Anthropological Society, he confessed that a gigantic ape of hylobatic type would have a cranial capacity close to that of Pithecanthropus, even if we suppose it to have been no taller than a man. (Cf. Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1898, p. 350.) The admission is all the more significant in view of the fact that Dubois was then endeavoring to exclude the possibility of regarding Pithecanthropus as an anthropoid ape.

The teeth, according to Dubois, are unlike the teeth of either men or apes, but according to Virchow and Hrdlička, they are more ape-like than human. The femur, though unquestionably man-like, might conceivably belong to an ape of the gibbon type, inasmuch as the upright posture is more normal to the long-armed gibbon than to any other anthropoid ape, and its thighbone, for this reason, bears the closest resemblance to that of man. According to the “Text-Book of Zoölogy” by Parker and Haswell, the gibbon is the only ape that can walk erectly, which it does, not like other apes, with the fore-limbs used as crutches, but balanced exclusively upon its hind-limbs, with its long arms dangling to the ground—“The Gibbons can walk in an upright position without the assistance of the fore-limbs; in the others, though, in progression on the surface of the ground, the body may be held in a semi-erect position with the weight resting on the hind-limbs, yet the assistance of the long fore-limbs acting as crutches is necessary to enable the animal to swing itself along.” (Op. cit., 3rd ed., 1921, vol. II, p. 494.) The Javanese femur is rounder than in man, and is, in this, as well as other respects, more akin to the thighbone of the gibbon. “After examining hundreds of human femora,” says Dubois, “Manouvrier could find only two that had a somewhat similar shape. It is therefore a very rare form in man. With the gibbon a similar form normally occurs.” (Loc. cit., pp. 456, 457.) Whether the thighbone really belonged to an erectly walking animal has not yet been definitely settled. To decide this matter, it would be necessary to apply the Walkhoff x-ray method, which determines the mode of progression from the arrangement of the bone fibers in frontal, or other, sections from the femur. This test, however, has not hitherto been made. Nor should the significance of the fact that the thighbone was found at a distance of some fifty feet away from the skull-cap be overlooked, seeing that this fact destroys, once and for all, any possibility of certainty that both belonged to the same animal.

In conclusion, therefore, we may say that the remains of Pithecanthropus are so scanty, fragmentary, and doubtful, as to preclude a reliable verdict on their true significance. As Virchow pointed out, the determination of their correct taxonomic position is impossible, in the absence of a complete skeleton. Meanwhile, the most probable opinion is that they represent the remains of a giant ape of the hylobatic type. In other words, the Pithecanthropus belongs to the genealogical tree of the apes, and not to that of man. In fact, he has been excluded from the direct line of human descent by Schwalbe, Alsberg, Kollmann, Haacke, Hubrecht, Klaatsch, and all the foremost protagonists of the theory of collateral descent. (Cf. Dwight, op. cit., ch. VIII.) Professor McGregor’s series consisting of an ape, the Pithecanthropus, Homo neanderthalensis, and the Crô-Magnon Man fails as an argument, not only for the general reason we have discussed in our third chapter, but also for two special reasons, namely: (1) that he completely ignores the chronological question of the comparative age of the fossils in his series, and (2) that he has neglected to take into account the consideration of the body-brain ratio. For as Prof. G. Grant MacCurdy puts it, “We must distinguish between relative (cranial) capacity and absolute capacity.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1909, p. 575.) In justice to Professor McGregor, however, it should be noted that he proposes his interpretation in a purely provisory and tentative sense, and does not dogmatize after the fashion of Osborn and Gregory.

After the year 1896, Dubois appears to have withdrawn the relics of Pithecanthropus from further inspection on the part of scientific men, and to have kept them securely locked up in his safe at Haarlem, Holland. (Cf. Science, June 15, 1923, suppl. VIII.) Since all existing casts of the skull-cap of Pithecanthropus are inaccurate, according to the measurements originally given by Dubois, anthropologists were anxious to have access to bones, in order to verify his figures and to obtain better casts. (Cf. Hrdlička, Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1913, p. 498.) His obstinate refusal, therefore, to place the Javanese remains at the disposal of scientists was bitterly resented by the latter. Some of them accused him of having become “reactionary” and “orthodox” in his later years, and others went so far as to impugn his good faith in the matter of the discovery. (Cf. W. H. Ballou’s article, North American Review, April, 1922.) A writer in Science says: “It has been rumored that he was influenced by religious bigotry” and refers to the bones as a “skeleton in the closet.” (Cf. loc. cit.) Dubois’ own explanation, however, was that he wished to publish his own finds first. Recently, he seems to have yielded to pressure in the matter, since he permitted Hrdlička, McGregor, and others to examine the fragments of Pithecanthropus. (Cf. Science, Aug. 17, 1923, Suppl. VIII.) Meanwhile, too, his opinion has changed with reference to these bones, which he now regards as the remains of a large ape of the hylobatic type, and not of a form intermediate between men and apes. This opinion is, in all likelihood, the correct one.

(2) The Heidelberg Man: In a quarry near Mauer in the Elsenz Valley, Germany, on Oct. 21, 1907, a workman engaged in excavating drove his shovel into a fossilized human jaw, severing it into two pieces. Herr Joseph Rösch, the owner of the quarry, immediately telegraphed the news of the find to Prof. Otto Schoetensack of the neighboring University of Heidelberg. The Professor arrived on the scene the following day, and “once he got hold of the specimen, he would no more let it out of his possession.” (Cf. Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1913, p. 510.) He took it back with him to Heidelberg, where he cleaned and repaired it. The crowns of four of the teeth broken by the workman’s shovel were never recovered. The Heidelberg jaw was found at a depth of about 79 feet below the surface (24.1 meters). Fossil bones of Elephas antiquus, Rhinoceros etruscus, Felis leo fossilis, etc., are said to have been discovered at the same level. The layer in which it was found has been classed by some as Middle Pleistocene, by others as Early Quaternary; for “there seems to be some uncertainty as to the exact subdivision of the period to which it should be attributed.” (Hrdlička, loc. cit., p. 516.) No other part of the skeleton except the jaw was discovered.

The teeth are of the normal human pattern, being small and vertical. Prof. Arthur Keith says they have the same shape as those of the specimen found at Spy. The jaw has an ape-like appearance, due to the extreme recessiveness of the chin. It is also remarkable for its massiveness and the broadness of the ascending rami. Its anomalous character is indicated by the manifest disproportion between the powerful jaw and the insignificant teeth. “One is impressed,” says Prof. George Grant MacCurdy of Yale, “by the relative smallness of the teeth as compared with the massive jaw in the case of Homo heidelbergensis.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1909, p. 570.) “Why so massive a jaw,” says the late Professor Dwight, former anatomist at Harvard, “should have such inefficient teeth is hard to explain, for the very strength of the jaw implies the fitness of corresponding teeth. Either it is an anomaly or the jaw of some aberrant species of ape.” (Op. cit., p. 164.) This fact alone destroys its evidential force; for, by way of anomaly, almost any sort of feature can appear in apes and men, that is, human characters in apes and simian characters in man. “Thus it is certain,” says Dwight, “that animal features of the most diverse kinds appear in man apparently without rhyme or reason, and also that they appear in precisely the same way in animals far removed from those in which they are normal. It is hopeless to try to account for them by inheritance; and to call them instances of convergence does not help matters.” (Op. cit., pp. 230, 231.)

Kramberger, however, claims that, with the exception of the extremely recessive chin, the features of the Heidelberg jaw are approximated by those which are normal in the modern Eskimo skull. (Cf. Sitzungbericht der Preuss. Akad. der Wissenschaften, 1909.) Prof. J. H. McGregor holds similar views. He claims that the greater use of the jaw in uncivilized peoples, who must masticate tough foods, tends to accentuate and increase the recessiveness of the chin. It is also possible that the backward sloping of the chin may have been intensified in certain primitive races or varieties of the human species as a result of factorial mutation. We would not, however, be justified in segregating a distinct human species on the basis of minor differences, such as the protuberance or recessiveness of chins. On the whole, we are hopelessly at sea with reference to the significance of the Heidelberg mandible. Taxonomic allocation must be grounded on something more than a jaw, otherwise it amounts to nothing more than a piece of capricious speculation.

(3) Eoanthropus Dawsoni: Dec. 18, 1912, is memorable with evolutionary anthropologists as the day on which Charles Dawson announced his discovery of the famous Dawn Man. The period of discovery extended from the years prior to 1911 up to Aug. 30, 1913, when the canine tooth was found by Father Teilhard de Chardin. The locality was Piltdown Common, Sussex, in England. The fragments recovered were an imperfect cranium, part of the mandible, and the above-mentioned canine tooth. The stratified Piltdown gravel, which Dawson assigns to the Lower Pleistocene or Glacial epoch, had been much disturbed by workmen, “who were digging the gravel for small repairs.” (Dawson.) The discoverer first found a fragment of a parietal bone. Then several years later, after the gravels had been considerably rainwashed, he recovered other fragments of the skull. All parts of the skeletal remains are said to have been found within a radius of several yards from the site of the initial discovery. The skull was reconstructed by Dr. A. Smith Woodward and deposited in the British Museum of Natural History at South Kensington. Eoliths were found in the same gravel as the skull.

Of the skull, according to Woodward, four parts remain, which, however, were integrated from nine fragments of bone. “The human remains,” he says, “comprise the greater part of a brain-case and one ramus of the mandible, with two lower molars.” Of Woodward’s reconstruction, Keith tells us that “an approach to symmetry and a correct adjustment of parts came only after many experimental reconstructions” (cf. “Antiquity of Man,” p. 364), and he also remarks that, when Woodward undertook to “replace the missing points of the jaws, the incisor and canine teeth, he followed simian rather than human lines.” (Op. cit., p. 324.) Here we may be permitted to observe that, even apart from the distorting influence of preconceived theories, this business of reconstruction is a rather dubious procedure. The absence of parts and the inevitable modification introduced by the use of cement employed to make the fragments cohere make accurate reconstruction an impossibility. The fact that Woodward assigned to the lower jaw a tooth which Gerrit Miller of the United States Museum assigns to the upper jaw, may well give pause to those credulous persons, who believe that palæontologists can reliably reconstruct a whole cranium or skeleton from the minutest fragments. Sometimes, apparently, the “experts” are at sea even over so simple a question as the proper allocation of a tooth.

Woodward, however, was fully satisfied with his own artistic work on Eoanthropus; for he says: “While the skull, indeed, is evidently human, only approaching a lower grade in certain characters of the brain, in the attachment for the neck, the extent of the temporal muscles and in the probable size of the face, the mandible appears to be almost precisely that of an ape, with nothing human except the molar teeth.” (Cf. Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1913, pp. 505, 506.) Of the cranial capacity Woodward gives the following estimate: “The capacity of the brain-case cannot, of course, be exactly determined; but measurements both by millet seed and water show that it must have been at least 1,070 cc., while a consideration of the missing parts suggests that it may have been a little more (note the parsimoniousness of this concession!). It therefore agrees closely with the capacity of the Gibraltar skull, as determined by Professor Keith, and equals that of the lowest skulls of the existing Australians. It is much below the Mousterian skulls from Spy and La Chapelle-aux-Saints.” (Loc. cit., p. 505.)

Where Doctor Woodward came to grief, however, was in his failure to discern the obvious disproportion between the mismated cranium and mandible. As a matter of fact, the mandible is older than the skull and belongs to a fossil ape, whereas the cranium is more recent and is conspicuously human. Woodward, however, was blissfully unconscious of this mésalliance. What there is of the lower jaw, he assures us, “shows the same mineralized condition as the skull” and “corresponds sufficiently well in size to be referred to the same individual without any hesitation.” (Loc. cit., p. 506.)

For this he was roundly taken to task by Prof. David Waterston in an address delivered by the latter before the London Geological Society, Dec., 1912. Nature, the English scientific weekly, reports this criticism as follows: “To refer the mandible and the cranium to the same individual would be equivalent to articulating a chimpanzee foot with the bones of a human thigh and leg.” Prof. J. H. McGregor of Columbia, though he followed Woodward in modeling the head of Eoanthropus now exhibited in “The Hall of the Age of Man,” told the writer that he believed the jaw and the skull to be misfits. Recently, Hrdlička has come out strongly for the separation of the mandible from the cranium, insisting that the former is older and on the order of the jaw of the fossil ape Dryopithecus, while the skull is less antique and indubitably human. The following abstract of Hrdlička’s view is given in Science, May 4, 1923: “Dr. Hrdlička,” we read, “holds that the Piltdown jaw is much older than the skull found near it and to which it had been supposed to belong.” (Cf. suppl. X.) Hrdlička asserts that, from the standpoint of dentition, there is a striking resemblance between the Piltdown jaw and that of the extinct ape Dryopithecus rhenanus. He comments, in fact, on “the close relation of the Piltdown molars to some of the Miocene or early Pliocene human-like teeth of this fossil ape.” (Ibidem.) Still other authorities, however, have claimed that the jaw was that of a chimpanzee.

To conclude, therefore, the Eoanthropus Dawsoni is an invention, and not a discovery, an artistic creation, not a specimen. Anyone can combine a simian mandible with a human cranium, and, if the discovery of a connecting link entails no more than this, then there is no reason why evidence of human evolution should not be turned out wholesale.

(4) The Neanderthal Man (No. 1): The remains of the famous Neanderthal Man were found in August, 1856, by two laborers at work in the Feldhofer Grotte, a small cave about 100 feet from the Düssel river, near Hochdal in Germany. This cave is located at the entrance of the Neanderthal gorge in Westphalia, at a height of 60 feet above the bottom of the valley. No competent scientist, however, saw the bones in situ. Both the bones and the loam, in which they were entombed, had been thrown out of the cave and partly precipitated into the ravine, long before the scientists arrived. Indeed, the scientific discoverer, Dr. C. Fuhlrott, did not come upon the scene until several weeks later. It was then too late to determine the age of the bones geologically and stratigraphically, and no petrigraphic examination of the loam was made. The cave, which is about 25 meters above the level of the river, communicates by crevices with the surface, so that it is possible that the bones and the loam, which covered the floor of the cave, may have been washed in from without. Fuhlrott recovered a skull-cap, two femurs, both humeri, both ulnæ (almost complete), the right radius, the left pelvic bone, a fragment of the right scapula, five pieces of rib, and the right clavicle. (Cf. Hugues Obermaier’s article, Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1906, pp. 394, 395.) “Whether they (the bones) were really in the Alluvial loam,” says Virchow, “no one saw.... The whole importance of the Neanderthal skull consists in the honor ascribed to it from the very beginning, of having rested in the Alluvial loam, which was formed at the time of the early mammals.” (Quoted by Ranke, “Der Mensch,” II, p. 485.) We know nothing, therefore, regarding the age of the fragmentary skeleton; for, as Obermaier says: “It is certain that its exact age is in no way defined, either geologically or stratigraphically.” (Loc. cit., p. 395.)

The remains are no less enigmatic from the anthropological standpoint. For while no doubt has been raised as to their human character, they have given rise to at least a dozen conflicting opinions. Thus Professor Clemont of Bonn pronounced the remains in question to be those of a Mongolian Cossack shot by snipers in 1814, and cast by his slayers into the Feldhofer Grotte. The same verdict had been given by L. Meyer in 1864. C. Carter Blake (1864) and Karl Vogt (1863) declared the skull to be that of an idiot. J. Barnard Davis (1864) claimed that it had been artificially deformed by early obliteration of the cranial sutures. Pruner-Bey (1863) said that it was the skull of an ancient Celt or German; R. Wagner (1864), that it belonged to an ancient Hollander; Rudolf Virchow, that the remains were those of a primitive Frieslander. Prof. G. Schwalbe of Strassburg erected it into a new genus of the Anthropidæ in 1901. In 1904, however, he repented of his rashness and contented himself with calling it a distinct human species, namely, Homo primigenius, in contradistinction to Homo sapiens (modern man). As we shall see presently, however, it is not a distinct species, but, at most, an ancient variety or subspecies (race) of the species Homo sapiens, differing from modern Europeans only in the degree that Polynesians, Mongolians, and Hottentots differ from them, that is, within the limits of the one and only human species. Other opinions might be cited (cf. Hrdlička, Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1913, p. 518, and H. Muckermann’s “Darwinism and Evolution,” 1906, pp. 63, 64), but the number and variety of the foregoing bear ample testimony to the uncertain and ambiguous character of the remains.

The skull is that of a low, perhaps, degenerate, type of humanity. The facial and basal parts of the skull are missing. Hence we are not sure of the prognathism shown in McGregor’s reconstruction. The skull has, however, a retreating forehead, prominent brow ridges and a sloping occiput. Yet, in spite of the fact that it is of a very low type, it is indubitably human. “In no sense,” says Huxley, “can the Neanderthal bones be regarded as the remains of a human being intermediate between men and apes.” (“Evidence of Man’s Place in Nature,” Humb. ed., p. 253.) D. Schaaffhausen makes the same confession—“In making this discovery,” he owns, “we have not found the missing link.” (“Der Neanderthaler Fund,” p. 49.) The cranial capacity of the Neanderthal skull, as we have seen, is 1,236 c.cm., which is practically the same as that of the average European woman of today. In size it exceeds, but in shape it resembles, the dolichocephalic skull of the modern Australian, being itself a dolichocephalic cranium. Huxley called attention to this resemblance, and Macnamara, after comparing it with a large number of such skulls, reaches this conclusion: “The average cranial capacity of these selected 36 skulls (namely, of Australian and Tasmanian blacks) is even less than that of the Neanderthal group, but in shape some of these two groups are closely related.” (Archiv. für Anthropologie, XXVIII, 1903, p. 358.) Schwalbe’s opinion that the Neanderthal Man constitutes a distinct species, though its author has since abandoned it (cf. Wasmann’s “Modern Biology,” Eng. ed., 1910, p. 506), will be considered later, viz. after we have discussed the Men of Spy, Krapina and Le Moustier, all of whom have been assigned to the Neanderthal group.

(5) Neanderthal Man (No. 2): This specimen is said to be more recent than No. 1. Its discoverers were Rautert, Klaatsch, and Koenen. It consists of a human skeleton without a skull. It was found buried in the loess at a depth of 50 centimeters. This loess had been washed into the ruined cave, where the relics were found, subsequently to its deposition on the plateau above. The bones were most probably washed into the cave along with the loess, which fills the remnant of the destroyed cave. The upper plateau of the region is covered with the same loess. The site of the second discovery was 200 meters to the west of the Neanderthal Cave (i.e. the Feldhofer Grotte). The bones were either washed into the broken cave, or buried there later. We have no indication whatever of their age.

(6) The Man of La Naulette: In 1866, André Dupont found in the cavern of La Naulette, valley of the Lesse, Belgium, a fossil lower jaw, or rather, the fragment of a lower jaw, associated with remains of the mammoth and rhinoceros. The fragment was sufficient to show the dentition, and to indicate the absence of a chin. “Its kinship with the man of Neanderthal,” remarks Professor MacCurdy very naïvely, “whose lower jaw could not be found, was evident. It tended to legitimatize the latter, which hitherto had failed of general recognition.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1909, p. 572.)

(7) The Men of Spy: In June of 1886 two nearly complete skeletons, probably of a woman and a man, were discovered by Messrs. Marcel de Puydt and Maximin Lohest in a terrace fronting a cave at Spy in the Province of Namur, Belgium, 47½ feet above the shallow bed of the stream Orneau. The bones were found at a depth of 13 feet below the surface of the terrace. The remains were associated with bones of the rhinoceros (Rhinoceros tichorhinus), the mammoth (Elephas primigenius), and the great bear (Ursus spelaeus). There were also stone implements indicating Mousterian industry, and the position of one of the skeletons shows that the bodies were buried by friends. The present valley of the Orneau was almost completely formed at the time of the burial. The exact age of the bones cannot be determined nor can these cave deposits be correlated with the river drift and the loess. The cultural evidences are said to be Mousterian, and Mousterian culture is assigned by Obermaier to the Fourth, or last, Glacial period.

Prof. Julien Fraipont of the University of Liége announced the discovery of these palæolithic skeletons Aug. 16, 1886. Skeleton No. 1 has weaker bones and is thought to be that of a woman; No. 2 shows signs of strong musculature and is evidently that of a man. Of No. 1 we have the cranial vault, two portions of the upper jaw (with five molars and four other teeth), a nearly complete mandible with all the teeth, a left clavicle, a right humerus, the shaft of the left humerus, a left radius, the heads of two ulnæ, a nearly complete right femur, a complete left tibia, and the right os calcis. Of No. 2 we have the vault of the skull, two portions of the maxilla with teeth, loose teeth belonging to lower jaw, fragments of the scapulæ, the left clavicle, imperfect humeri, the shaft of the right radius, a left femur, the left os calcis, and the left astragalus. The separation of the bones, however, is not yet satisfactory. The jaw of No. 1 is well-preserved, except in the region of the coronoids and condyles, which makes any position we may give it more or less arbitrary. The skull of this specimen is almost the replica of the Neanderthal skull, except that the forehead is lower and more sloping. But No. 1 has a trace of chin prominence and in this it resembles modern skulls. No. 2 has a higher forehead and the cranial vault is higher and more spacious.

In both skeletons the radius and femur show a peculiar curvature, and in both, too, the arms and legs must have been very short. Hence the men of Spy are described as having been only partially erect, and as having had bowed thighs and bent knees. The source of this modification, however, is not a surviving pithecoid atavism, but a non-inheritable adaptation acquired through the habitual attitude or posture maintained in stalking game—“Now we know,” says Dwight, “that this feature, which is certainly an ape-like one, implies simply that the race was one of those with the habit of ‘squatting,’ which implies that the body hangs from the knees, not touching the ground for hours together. As a matter of course we look for this in savage tribes.” (“Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist,” p. 168.) The same may be said of the receding chin, which, as we have seen, is also an acquired adaptation. The same, finally, is true of the prominent brow ridges, which are not pithecoid, but are, as Klaatsch has pointed out, related to the size of the eye sockets, and consequently the result of an adaptation of early palæolithic man to the life of a hunter, a natural sequel of the very marked development of his sense of sight. Similar brow ridges, though not quite so prominent, occur among modern Australian blacks.

Nor are the remains as typically Neanderthaloid as Keith and others (who wish to see in palæolithic men a distinct human species) could desire. No. 1, as we have seen, though almost a replica of the Neanderthal skull-cap, has a trace of chin prominence in the mandible. No. 2, though the chin is recessive, has a higher forehead and higher and more spacious cranial vault than the Neanderthal Man. “On the whole,” says Hrdlička, “it may be said that No. 2, while in some respects still very primitive, represents morphologically a decided step from the Neanderthaloid to the present-day type of the human cranium.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1913, p. 525.)

(8) The Men of Krapina: In the cave, or rather rock shelter, of Krapina, in northern Croatia, beside the small stream Kaprinica which now flows 82 feet below the cave, K. Gorjanovič-Kramberger, Professor of geology and palæontology at the University of Zagreb, found, in the year 1899, ten or twelve skulls in fragments, a large number of teeth, and many other defective parts of skeletons. All told, they represent at least fourteen different individuals. The bones are in a bad state of preservation, and show traces of burning, some of them being calcined. The bones were associated with objects of Mousterian industry, and bones of extinct animals such as Rhinoceros merckii, Ursus spelaeus, Bos primigenius, etc. The aforesaid Rhinoceros is an older type than the Rhinoceros tichorhinus associated with the men of Spy, and implies a hot climate, wherein the Rhinoceros merckii managed to persist for a longer time than in the north. Hence the remains are thought to belong to the last Interglacial period.

In general, the bones show the same racial characteristics as those of Neanderthal and Spy, though they are said to be of a perceptibly more modern type than the latter. They were men of short stature and strong muscular development. “The crania,” says Hrdlička, “were of good size externally, but the brain cavities were probably below the present average. The vault of the skull was of good length and at the same time fairly broad, so that the cephalic index, at least in some of the individuals, was more elevated than usual in the crania of early man.” (Loc. cit., pp. 530, 531.) The reader must take Hrdlička’s use of the word “usual” with “the grain of salt” necessitated in view of the scanty number of specimens whence such inductive generalizations are derived. The pronounced and complete supraorbital arcs characteristic of the Neanderthaloid type occur in this group also, though in a less marked manner. The stone implements are evidence of the intelligence of these men.

(9) The Le Moustier Man: This specimen, Homo mousteriensis Hauseri, was found by Prof. O. Hauser in the “lower Moustier Cave” at Le Moustier in the valley of the Vézère, Department of Dordogne in France, during the March of 1908. It consists of the complete skull and other skeletal parts of a youth of about 15 years. At this age, the sex cannot be determined from the bones alone. Obermaier assigns these bones to the Fourth Glacial period. Prof. George Grant MacCurdy’s anthropological evaluation is the following: “The race characters ... are not so distinct (i.e. at the age of 15 years) as they would be at full maturity; but they point unmistakably to the type of Neanderthal, Spy, and Krapina—the so-called Homo primigenius which now also becomes Homo mousteriensis. It was a rather stocky type, robust and of a low stature. The arms and legs were relatively short, especially the forearm and from the knee down, as is the case among the Eskimo. Ape-like characters are noticeable in the curvature of the radius and of the femur, the latter being also rounder in section than is the case with Homo sapiens. In the retreating forehead, prominent brow ridges, and prognathism (i.e. projection of the jaws) it is approached to some extent by the modern Australian. The industry associated with this skeleton is that typical of the Mousterian epoch.” (Loc. cit., p. 573.) As we have already seen, the so-called ape-like features are simply acquired adaptations to the hunter’s life, and, if inheritable characters, they do not exceed the limits of a varietal mutation. That the Mousterian men were endowed with the same intelligence as ourselves, appears from the evidences of solemn burial which surround the remains of this youth of 15 years, and prove, as Klaatsch points out, that these men of the Glacial period were persuaded of their own immortality. The head reclined on a pillow of earth, which still retains the impression of the youth’s cheek, the body having been laid on its side. Around the corpse are the best examples of the stone implements of the period, the parents having buried their choicest possession with the corpse of their son.

(10) The La Chapelle Man: On August 3, 1908, the Abbés J. and A. Bouyssonie and L. Bardon, assisted by Paul Bouyssonie (a younger brother of the first two), discovered palæolithic human remains, which are also assigned to the Neanderthal group. The locality of the discovery was the village of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, 22 kilometers south of the town of Brive, in the department of Corrèze, in southern France. In the side of a moderate elevation, 200 yards south of the aforesaid village, and beyond the left bank of a small stream, the Sourdoire, there is a cave now known as the Cave of La Chapelle-aux-Saints. It was here, on the above-mentioned date, that the priests discovered the bones of a human skeleton surrounded by unmistakable evidences of solemn burial. “The body lay on its back, with the head to the westward, the latter being surrounded by stones.... About the body were many flakes of quartz and flint, some fragments of ochre, broken animal bones, etc.” (Hrdlička.) Another token of burial is the rectangular pit, in which the remains were found. It is sunk to a depth of 30 to 40 centimeters in the floor of the cavern.

“They (the remains) were covered,” says Prof. G. G. MacCurdy, “by a deposit intact 30 to 40 centimeters thick, consisting of a magma of bone, of stone implements, and of clay. The stone implements belong to a pure Mousterian industry. While some pieces suggest a vague survival of Acheulian implements (i.e. from the cool latter half of the Third Interglacial period), others presage the coming of the Aurignacian (close of last Glacial period). Directly over the human skull were the foot bones, still in connection, of a bison—proof that the piece had been placed there with the flesh still on, and proof, too, that the deposit had not been disturbed. Two hearths were noted also, and the fact that there were no implements of bone, the industry differing in this respect from that of La Quina and Petit-Puymoyen (Charente), as well as at Wildkirchli, Switzerland.

“The human bones include the cranium and lower jaw (broken, but the pieces nearly all present and easily replaced in exact position), a few vertebræ and long bones, several ribs, phalanges, and metacarpals, clavicle, astragalus, calcaneum, parts of scaphoid, ilium, and sacrum. The ensemble denotes an individual of the male sex whose height was about 1.60 meters. The condition of the sutures and of the jaws proves the skull to be that of an old man. The cranium is dolichocephalic, with an index of 75. It is said to be flatter in the frontal region than those of Neanderthal and Spy.” (Loc. cit., p. 574.)

The associated remains of fossil animals comprise the horse, reindeer, bison, Rhinoceros tichorinus, etc., and, according to Hrdlička, “indicate that the deposits date from somewhere near the middle of the glacial epoch.” (Loc. cit., p. 539.) The discoverers turned over the skeleton to Marcellin Boule of the Paris Museum of Natural History for cleaning and reconstruction. It is the first instance of a palæolithic man, in which the basal parts of the skull, including the foramen magnum, were recovered. Professor Boule estimates the cranial capacity as being something between 1,600 and 1,620 c.cm. He found the lower part of the face to be prognathic, but not excessively so, the vault like the Neanderthal cranium, but larger, the occiput broad and protruding, the supraorbital arch prominent and complete, the nasal process broad, the forehead low, and the mandible stout and chinless, though not sloping backward at the symphysis.

Alluding to the rectangular burial pit in the cave, Hrdlička remarks: “The depression was clearly made by the primitive inhabitants or visitors of the cave for the body and the whole represents very plainly a regular burial, the most ancient intentional burial thus far discovered.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1913, p. 539.)

The specimens of Neanderthal, Spy, La Naulette, Krapina, Le Moustier and La Chapelle, as we have seen, are the principal remains said to represent the Neanderthal type, which, according to Keith and others, is a distinct human species. As Aurignacian Man (assigned to the close of the “Old Stone Age,” or Glacial epoch), including the Grimaldi or Negroid as well as the Crô-Magnon type, are universally acknowledged to belong to the species Homo sapiens, we need not discuss them here. The same holds true, a fortiori, of Neolithic races such as the Solutreans and the Magdalenians. The main issue for the present is whether or not the Neanderthal type represents a distinct species of human being.

Anent this question, Professor MacCurdy has the following: “Boule estimated the capacity of the Chapelle-aux-Saints skull according to the formulæ of Manouvrier, of Lee, and of Beddoe, obtaining results that varied between 1,570 and 1,750 cubic centimeters. By the use of millet and of shot an average capacity of 1,626 was obtained. Judging from these figures the capacity of the crania of Neanderthal and Spy has been underestimated by Schaaffhausen, Huxley, and Schwalbe. By its cranial capacity, therefore, the Neanderthal race belongs easily in the class of Homo sapiens. But we must distinguish between relative capacity and absolute capacity. In modern man, where the transverse and antero-posterior diameters are the same as in the skull of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, the vertical diameter would be much greater, which would increase the capacity to 1,800 cubic centimeters and even to 1,900 cubic centimeters. Such voluminous modern crania are very rare. Thus Bismarck, with horizontal cranial diameters scarcely greater than in the man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, is said to have had a cranial capacity of 1,965 cubic centimeters.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1909, p. 575.)

As for the structural features which are alleged to constitute a specific difference between the Neanderthal type and modern man, v.g. the prominent brow ridges, prognathism, retreating forehead, receding chin, etc., all of these occur, albeit in a lesser degree, in modern Australian blacks, who are universally acknowledged to belong to the species Homo sapiens. Moreover, there is much fluctuation, as Kramberger has shown from the examination of an enormous number of modern and fossil skulls, in both the Neanderthal and the modern type; that is to say, Neanderthaloid features occur in modern skulls and, conversely, modern features occur in the skulls of Homo neanderthalensis (cf. “Biolog. Zentralblatt,” 1905, p. 810; and Wasmann’s “Modern Biology,” Eng. ed., pp. 472, 473).

All the differences between modern and palæolithic man are explicable, partly upon the basis of acquired adaptation, inasmuch as the primitive mode of life pursued by the latter entailed the formation of body-modifying habits very different from our present customs and habits (viz. those of our modern civilized life). But these modifications, not being inheritable, passed away with the passing of the habits that gave rise to them. In part, however, the differences may be due to heritable mutations, which gave rise to new races or varieties or subspecies, such as Indo-Europeans, Mongolians, and Negroes. And, if the evolutionary palæontologist insists on magnifying characters that are well within the scope of mere factorial mutation into a specific difference, we shall reply, with Bateson and Morgan, by denying his competence to pronounce on taxonomic questions, without consulting the verdict of the geneticist. Without breeding tests, the criterions of intersterility and longevity cannot be applied, and breeding tests are impossible in the case of fossils. As for an a priori verdict, no modern geneticist, if called upon to give his opinion, would concede that the differences which divide the modern and the Neanderthal types of men exceed the limits of factorial mutations, or of natural varieties within the same species. Here, then, it is a case of the wish being father to the thought. So anxious are the materialistic evolutionists to secure evidence of a connection between man and the brute, that no pretext is too insignificant to serve as warrant for recognizing an “intermediate species.”

Even waiving this point, however, there is no evidence at all that the Neanderthal type is ancestral to the Crô-Magnon type. Both of these races must have migrated into Europe from the east or the south, and we have no proof whatever of genetic relationship between them. True, attempts have been made to capitalize the fact that the Neanderthal race was represented by specimens discovered in what were alleged to be the older deposits of the Glacial epoch, but we have seen that the evidences of antiquity are very precarious in the case of these Neanderthaloid skeletons. Time-scales based on extinct species and characteristic stone implements, etc., are always satisfactory to evolutionists, because they can date their fossils and archæological cultures according to the theory of evolution, but, for one whose confidence in the “reality” of evolution is not so great, these palæontological chronometers are open to grave suspicion.

If the horizon levels are not too finely graded, the difficulty of accepting such a time-scale is not excessive. Hence we might be prepared to accept the chronometric value of the division of fossiliferous rocks into Groups, such as the Palæozoic, the Mesozoic, and the Cænozoic, even though we are assured by Grabau that this time-scale is “based on the changes of life, with the result that fossils alone determine whether a formation belongs to one or the other of these great divisions” (“Principles of Stratigraphy,” p. 1103), but when it comes to projecting an elaborate scheme of levels or horizons into Pleistocene deposits on the dubious basis of index fossils and “industries,” our credulity is not equal to the demands that are made upon it. And this is particularly true with reference to fossil men. Man has the geologically unfortunate habit of burying his dead. Other fossils have been entombed on the spot where they died, and therefore belong where we find them. But it is otherwise with man. In Hilo, Hawaii, the writer heard of a Kanaka, who was buried to a depth of 80 feet, having stipulated this sort of burial through a special disposition in his will. His purpose, in so doing, was to preclude the possibility of his bones ever being disturbed by a plough or other instrument. Nor have we any right to assume that indications of burial will always be present in a case of this nature. We may, on the contrary, assume it as a general rule that human remains are always more recent than the formations in which they are found.

Be that as it may, the evidences for the antiquity of the Neanderthaloid man prove, at most, that he was prior to the Crô-Magnon man in Europe, but they do not prove that the former was prior to the latter absolutely. Things may, for all we know, have been just the reverse in Asia. Hence we have no ground for regarding the Man of Neanderthal as ancestral to the race of artists, who frescoed the caves of France and Spain. In fact, to the unprejudiced mind the Neanderthal type conveys the impression of a race on the downward path of degeneration rather than an embodiment of the promise of better things. “There is another view,” says Dwight, “ ... though it is so at variance with the Zeitgeist that little is heard of it. May it not be that many low forms of man, archaic as well as contemporary, are degenerate races? We are told everything about progress; but decline is put aside. It is impossible to construct a tolerable scheme of ascent among the races of man; but cannot dark points be made light by this theory of degeneration? One of the most obscure, and to me most attractive of questions, is the wiping out of old civilizations. That it has occurred repeatedly, and on very extensive scales, is as certain as any fact in history. Why is it not reasonable to believe that bodily degeneration took place in those fallen from a higher estate, who, half-starved and degraded, returned to savagery? Moreover, the workings of the soul would be hampered by a degenerating brain. For my part I believe the Neanderthal man to be a specimen of a race, not arrested in its upward climb, but thrown down from a higher position.” (Op. cit., pp. 169, 170.)

The view, however, that the Neanderthaloid type had degenerated from a previous higher human type was not at all in accord with the then prevalent opinion that this type was far more ancient than any other. And Dwight himself admitted the force of the “objection ... that the Neanderthal race was an excessively old one and that skeletons of the higher race which, according to the view which I have offered, must have existed at the same time as the degenerate ones, are still to be discovered.” (Op. cit., p. 170.) In fact, the Neanderthal ancestry of the present human race was so generally accepted that, in the very year in which Dwight’s book appeared, Sir Arthur Keith declared: “The Neanderthal type represents the stock from which all modern races have arisen.” Time, however, as Dr. James Walsh remarked (America, Dec. 15, 1917, pp. 230, 231), has triumphantly vindicated the expectations of Professor Dwight. For in his latest book, “The Antiquity of Man” (1916), Sir Arthur Keith has a chapter of Conclusions, in which the following recantation appears: “We were compelled to admit,” he owns, “that men of the modern type had been in existence long before the Neanderthal type.”

But, even if it were true that savagery preceded civilization in Europe, such could not have been the case everywhere; for it is certain that civilization and culture of a comparatively high order were imported into Europe before the close of the Old Stone Age. The Hungarian Lake-dwellings show that culture of a high type existed in the New Stone Age. These two ages are regarded as prehistoric in Europe, though in America the Stone Age belongs to history. It is also possible that in Europe much of the Stone Age was coëval with the history of civilized nations, and that it may be coincident with, instead of prior to, the Bronze Age, which seems to have begun in Egypt, and which belongs unquestionably to history. And here we may be permitted to remark that history gives the lie to the evolutionary conceit that civilized man has arisen from a primitive state of barbarism. History begins almost contemporaneously in many different centers, such as Egypt, Babylonia, Chaldea, China, and Crete, about 5,000 or 6,000 years ago, and, as far back as history goes, we find the record of high civilizations existing side by side with a coëval barbarism. Barbarism is historically a state of degeneration and stagnation, and history knows of no instance of a people sunk in barbarism elevating itself by its own efforts to higher stages of civilization. Always civilization has been imposed upon barbarians from without. Savages, so far as history knows them, have never become civilized, save through the intervention of some contemporary civilized nation. History is one long refutation of the Darwinian theory of constant and inevitable progress. The progress of civilization is not subsequent, but prior, or parallel, to the retrogression of barbarism.

That savagery and barbarism represent a degenerate, rather than a primitive, state, is proved by the fact that savage tribes, in general, despite their brutish degradation, possess languages too perfectly elaborated and systematized to be accounted for by the mental attainments of the men who now use them, languages which testify unmistakably to the superior intellectual and cultural level of their civilized ancestors, to whom the initial construction of such marvelous means of communication was due. “It is indeed one of the paradoxes of linguistic science,” says Dr. Edwin Sapir, in a lecture delivered April 1, 1911, at the University of Pennsylvania, “that some of the most complexly organized languages are spoken by so-called primitive peoples, while, on the other hand, not a few languages of relatively simple structure are found among peoples of considerable advance in culture. Relatively to the modern inhabitants of England, to cite but one instance out of an indefinitely large number, the Eskimos must be considered as rather limited in cultural development. Yet there is just as little doubt that in complexity of form the Eskimo language goes far beyond English. I wish merely to indicate that, however we may indulge in speaking of primitive man, of a primitive language in the true sense of the word we find nowhere a trace.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 573.) Pierre Duponceau makes a similar observation with reference to the logical and orderly organization of the Indian languages: “The dialects of the Indian tribes,” he says, “appear to be the work of philosophers rather than of savages.” (Cited by F. A. Tholuck, “Verm. Schr.,” ii, p. 260.)

It was considerations of this sort which led the great philologist Max Müller to ridicule Darwin’s conception of primitive man as a savage. “As far as we can trace the footsteps of man,” he writes, “even on the lowest strata of history, we see that the Divine gift of a sound and sober intellect belonged to him from the very first; and the idea of humanity emerging slowly from the depths of an animal brutality can never be maintained again in our century. The earliest work of art wrought by the human mind—more ancient than any literary document, and prior even to the first whisperings of tradition—the human language, forms one uninterrupted chain, from the first dawn of history down to our own times. We still speak the language of the first ancestors of our race; and this language with its wonderful structures, bears witness against such gratuitous theories. The formation of language, the composition of roots, the gradual discrimination of meanings, the systematic elaboration of grammatic forms—all this working which we can see under the surface of our own speech attests from the very first the presence of a rational mind, of an artist as great at least as his work.” (“Essays,” vol. I, p. 306.) History and philology are far more solid and certain as a basis for inference than are “index fossils” and prehistoric archæology; and the lesson taught by history and philology is that primitive man was not a savage, but a cultured being endowed with an intellect equal, if not superior, to our own.

But, even if we grant the priority, which evolutionists claim for the Old Stone Age, there are not absent even from that cultural level evident tokens of artistic genius and high intellectual gifts. Speaking of the pictures in the caves of Altamira, of Marsoulas in the Haute Garonne, and of Fonte de Gaume in the Dordogne, the archæologist Sir Arthur Evans says: “These primeval frescoes display not only consummate mastery of natural design, but an extraordinary technical resource. Apart from the charcoal used in certain outlines, the chief coloring matter was red and yellow ochre, mortars and palettes for the preparation of which have come to light. In single animals the tints varied from black to dark and ruddy brown or brilliant orange, and so, by fine gradations, to paler nuances, obtained by scraping and washing. Outlines and details are brought out by white incised lines, and the artists availed themselves with great skill of the reliefs afforded by convexities of the rock surface. But the greatest marvel of all is that such polychrome masterpieces as the bisons, standing and couchant, or with limbs huddled together, of the Altamira Cave, were executed on the ceilings of inner vaults and galleries where the light of day has never penetrated. Nowhere is there any trace of smoke, and it is clear that great progress in the art of artificial illumination had already been made. We know that stone lamps, decorated in one case with the engraved head of an ibex, were already in existence. Such was the level of artistic attainment in southwestern Europe, at a modest estimate, some 10,000 years earlier than the most ancient monuments of Egypt or Chaldæa!” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1916, pp. 429, 430.) While reaffirming our distrust of the undocumented chronology of “prehistory,” we cite these examples of palæolithic art as a proof of the fact that everywhere the manifestation of man’s physical presence coincides with the manifestation of his intelligence, and that neither in history nor in prehistory have we any evidence of the existence of a bestial or irrational man preceding Homo sapiens, as we know him today. It is interesting to note in this connection that a certain J. Taylor claims to have found a prehistoric engraving of a mastodon on a bone found in a rock shelter known as Jacobs’ Cavern in Missouri (cf. Science, Oct. 14, 1921, p. 357). Incidents of this sort must needs dampen the enthusiasm of those who are overeager to believe in the enormous antiquity of the Old Stone Age in Europe.

(11) The Rhodesian Man: In 1921 a human skull was found by miners in the “Bone Cave” of the Broken Hill Mine in southern Rhodesia. It was associated with human and animal bones, as well as very crude instruments (knives and scrapers) in flint and quartz. It was found at a depth of 60 feet below the surface. The lower jaw was missing, and has not been recovered. It was sent to the British Museum, South Kensington, where it is now preserved. Doctor Smith-Woodward has examined and described it. “The skull is in some features the most primitive one that has ever been found; at the same time it has many points of resemblance to (or even identity with) that of modern man.” (Science, Feb. 3, 1922, p. 129.) The face is intact. The forehead is low, and the brow ridges are more pronounced than in any known fossil human skull. The prognathism of the upper jaw is very accentuated. The cranium is very flat on top and broad in the back. “Its total capacity is surprisingly large. At least one prominent authority thinks that this man had quite as much gray matter as the average modern man.” (Loc. cit., pp. 129, 130.) Woodward, however, estimates the cranial capacity of this skull as 1280 c.cm. The neck must have had powerful muscles. The nasal bone is prominent and Neanderthaloid in character. “The wisdom tooth is reduced in size—another point in common with modern man and never found before in a fossil skull.” (Ibidem.) The palate and the teeth in general are like those of existing men. The femur is not curved like that of the Neanderthal man—“In contrast to the Neanderthal man who is supposed to have walked in a crouching position (because of the rather curved femur and other bits of evidence), this man is believed to have maintained the upright position, because the femur is relatively straight and when fitted to the tibia (which was also found) presents a perfectly good, straight leg.” (Ibidem.) According to the writer we have quoted, Dr. Elliot Smith entertained hopes that the Rhodesian man might represent the “missing link” in man’s ancestry, leaving the Neanderthal man as an offshoot from the main ancestral trunk. No comment is necessary. The skull may be a pathological specimen, but, in any case, it is evidently human as regards its cranial capacity. The remains, moreover, serve to emphasize the fluctuational character of the so-called Homo primigenius type, being a mixture of modern and Neanderthaloid features. They are not fossilized and present a recent appearance. Hence, as B. Windle suggests, they may have fallen into the cave through a crack, and may be modern rather than prehistoric.

(12) The Foxhall Man: This is the earliest known prehistoric man. He is known to us, however, only through “his flint instruments partly burned with fire, found near the little hamlet of Foxhall, near Norwich, on the east coast of England. These flints, discovered in 1921, constitute the first proofs that man of sufficient intelligence to make a variety of flint implements and to use fire existed in Britain at the close of the Age of Mammals; this is the first true Tertiary man ever found.” (Osborn: Guide-leaflet to “The Hall of the Age of Man,” 2nd ed., 1923, p. 9.) Osborn assigns the twelve kinds of flint instruments typical of the Foxhallian culture to the Upper Pliocene epoch. R. A. Macalister, however, denies that the deposits are Tertiary. Abbé Henri Breuil’s verdict was undecided. In any case, the Foxhallian culture proves that the earliest of prehistoric men were intelligent like ourselves.

Summa summarum: So far as science knows, only one human species has ever existed on the earth, and that is Homo sapiens. All the alleged connecting links between men and apes are found, on careful examination, to be illusory. When not wholly ambiguous in view of their inadequate preservation and fragmentary character, they are (as regards both mind and body) distinctly human, like the Neanderthal man, or they are purely simian, like the Pithecanthropus, or they are heterogeneous combinations of human and simian bones, like the Eoanthropus Dawsoni.[18] “With absolute certainty,” says Hugues Obermaier, “we can only say that man of the Quaternary period differed in no essential respect from man of the present day. In no way did he go beyond the limits of variation of the normal human body.” (“The Oldest Remains of the Human Body, etc.,” Vienna, 1905.) The so-called Homo primigenius, therefore, is not a distinct species of human being, but merely an ancient race that is, at most, a distinct variety or subspecies of man. In spite of tireless searching, no traces of a bestial, irrational man have been discovered. Indeed, man whom nature has left naked, defenseless, unarmed with natural weapons, and deficient in instinct, has no other resource than his reason and could never have survived without it. To imagine primitive man in a condition analogous to that of the idiot is preposterous. “For other animals,” says St. Thomas of Aquin, “nature has prepared food, garments of fur, means of defense, such as teeth, horns, and hoofs, or at least swiftness in flight. But man is so constituted that, none of these things having been prepared for him by nature, reason is given him in their stead, reason by which through his handiwork he is enabled to prepare all these things.... Moreover, in other animals there is inborn a certain natural economy respecting those things which are useful or hurtful, as the lamb by nature knows the wolf to be its enemy. Some animals also by natural instinct are aware of the medicinal properties of herbs and of other things which are necessary for life. Man, however, has a natural knowledge of these things which are necessary for life only in general, as being able to arrive at the knowledge of the particular necessities of human life by way of inference from general principles.” (“De regim. princ.,” l. I, c. I.) As a matter of fact, man is never found apart from evidences of his intelligence. The Neanderthaloid race, with their solemn burials and implements of bone and stone, exemplify this truth no less than the palæolithic artists of the Cave of Altamira.

In the Cincinnati meeting (1923-1924) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a number of resolutions were passed regarding the subject of evolution. True, the session in which these resolutions were passed was but sparsely attended, and packed, for the most part, with the ultra-partisans of transformism. Nevertheless, it is to be regretted that the dignity of this eminent and distinguished body was so unfittingly compromised by the fulmination of rhetorical anathemas against W. J. Bryan and his Round Head adherents. Among the resolutions, of which we have spoken, the following dictatorial proclamation occurs: “The evidences in favor of the evolution of man are sufficient to convince every scientist in the world.”

This authoritative decree is both rash and intolerant. The resolution-committee of the American Association is by no means infallible, and, in the absence of infallibility, no group of men should be so unmindful of their own limitations as to strive to make their subjective views binding upon others. Scientific questions are not settled by authority, but exclusively by means of irresistible evidence, which is certainly absent in the present case. Moreover, the declaration in question is untrue; for many of the foremost palæontologists and anthropologists of the day confess their complete ignorance, as scientists, with respect to the origin of man.

Dr. Clark Wissler, for example, who is the Curator-in-Chief of the Anthropological section of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, made, in the course of an interview published in the New York American of April 2, 1918, the following statement: “Man, like the horse or elephant, just happened anyhow, so far as has been discovered yet. As far as science has discovered, there always was a man—some not so developed, but still human beings in all their functions, much as we are today.” Asked by the reporter, whether this did not favor the idea of an abrupt, unheralded appearance of man on earth, Doctor Wissler replied: “Man came out of a blue sky as far as we have been able to delve back.” Fearing lest the reporter might have sensationalized his words, the writer took occasion to question the learned anthropologist on the subject during the Pan Pacific Conference held at Honolulu, Hawaii (Aug. 2-20, 1920). His answer was that the foregoing citations were substantially correct.

The same verdict is given by the great palæontologist, Prof. W. Branco, Director of the Institute of Geology and Palæontology at the University of Berlin. In his discourse on “Fossil Man” delivered August 16, 1901, before the Fifth International Zoölogical Congress at Berlin, Branco said, with reference to the origin of man: “Palæontology tells us nothing on the subject—it knows no ancestors of man.” The well-known palæontologist Karl A. von Zittel reached the same conclusion. He says somewhere (probably in his “Grundzüge der Paläontologie”): “Such material as this (the discovered remains of fossil men) throws no light upon the question of race and descent. All the human bones of determinable age that have come down to us from the European Diluvium, as well as all the skulls discovered in caves, are identified by their size, shape, and capacity as belonging to Homo sapiens, and are fine specimens of their kind. They do not by any means fill up the gap between man and the ape.” Joseph Le Conte repeats the identical refrain. In the revised Fairchild edition (1903) of his “Elements of Geology” we read: “The earliest men yet found are in no sense connecting links between man and ape. They are distinctly human.” (Ch. VI, p. 638.) Replying to Haeckel, who in his “Welträtsel” proclaims man’s descent from pithecoid primates to be an historical fact, J. Reinke, the biologist of Kiel, declares: “We are merely having dust thrown in our eyes when we read in a widely circulated book by Ernst Haeckel the following words: ‘That man is immediately descended from apes, and more remotely from a long line of lower vertebrates, remains established as an indubitable historic fact, fraught with important consequences.’ It is absurd to speak of anything as a fact when experience lends it no support.” (“Haeckel’s Monism and Its Supporters,” Leipzig, 1907, p. 6.) The sum-total, in fact, of scientific knowledge concerning the origin of the human body is contained in the saying of the geologist, Sir Wm. Dawson, President of McGill University: “I know nothing about the origin of man, except what I am told in the Scripture—that God created him. I do not know anything more than that, and I do not know of anyone who does.”

In view of this uncertainty and ignorance regarding the origin of the human body, it is extremely unethical to strive to impose the theory of man’s bestial origin by the sheer weight of scientific authority and prestige. Conscientious scientists would never venture to abuse in such a fashion the confidence which the people at large place in their assurances. Hence those who respect their honor and dignity as scientists should refrain from dogmatizing on the undemonstrated animal origin of man, however much they may personally fancy this theory. “We cannot teach,” says Virchow, “nor can we regard as one of the results of scientific research, the doctrine that man is descended from the ape or from any other animal.” (“The Liberty of Science,” p. 30, et seq.) And Professor Reinke of Kiel concludes: “The only statement consistent with her dignity, that Science can make, is to say that she knows nothing about the origin of man.” (Der Türmer, V, Oct., 1902, Part I, p. 13.)

A slave, we are told (Tertul., Apolog. 33), rode in the triumphal chariot of the Roman conqueror, to whisper ever and anon in his ear: Hominem memento te!—“Remember that thou art a man!” It is unfortunate that no similar warning is sounded when the tone of scientific individuals or organizations threatens to become unduly imperious and intolerant. This tendency, however, to forget limitations and to usurp the prerogative of infallibility is sometimes rebuked by other reminders. The writer recalls an instance, which happened in connection with the Pan Pacific Conference at Honolulu during the August of 1920.

The Conference was attended by illustrious scientists from every land bordering upon the Pacific. After the preliminary sessions, the delegates paid a visit to the famous volcano of Kilauea. Doctor T. A. Jaggar, Jr., vulcanologist and Director of the United States Observatory at Kilauea, acted as guide, the writer himself being one of the party. In the course of our tour of inspection, we came to the extinct volcano of Kenakakoe. There a number of volcanic bombs, some shattered and some intact, were pointed out to us. For the benefit of readers, who may not know, I may state that a volcanic bomb originates as a fragment of foreign material, e.g. a stone, which, falling into a volcano, becomes coated with an external shell of lava. In addition to the bombs, certain holes in the soil were shown to us, which Doctor Jaggar, evidently under the influence of military imagery suggested by the then recent European War, described as “shell-craters” dug by the aforesaid volcanic bombs.

Doctor Jaggar accounted for the bombs and craters by a very ingenious theory. In 1790, he said, the year in which Kamehameha I was contending with Keoua for the mastery of the large island of Hawaii, the only explosive eruption of Kilauea known to history occurred, and it was during this eruption (which destroyed part of Keoua’s army) that the bombs found at Kenakakoe were ejected from the above-mentioned volcano. It was then, we were informed, that these bombs hurtling through the air in giant trajectories from Kilauea struck the ground and scooped out the “shell-craters” at Kenakakoe. Some of them, it appeared, did not remain in the craters, but rebounded to strike again on the rocks beyond. Of the latter, part were shattered, while others withstood the force of the second impact. The whole party was much impressed by the grandeur of this vivid description, and some of the scientists were at great pains to photograph the craters as awe-inspiring vestiges of the mighty bombardment wrought in times past by Nature’s volcanic artillery.

When I returned to Hilo, I happened to mention to Brother Matthias Newell some misgivings which I had felt concerning the size and appearance of the so-called “shell-craters.” Brother Newell, a member of the Marist Congregation and quite a scientist in his way, is famous in the Islands as the discoverer of a fungus, by which the Japanese Beetle, a local pest, has been largely exterminated. For several years, prior to the advent of Doctor Jaggar and the United States Observatory, he had studied extensively the famous volcano on the slopes of Mauna Loa. On hearing my narrative of the foregoing incident, Brother Newell was curious to know the exact locality, and burst into a hearty laugh as soon as I mentioned Kenakakoe. He himself, he told me, in company with Brother Henry, had frequently dug for bombs at Kenakakoe. When successful in their quest, the two were wont to carry the volcanic bomb to the rocks, and to break it open for the purpose of examining the inner core. Some of the bombs, however, escaped this fate through being too resistent to the hammer. The holes, needless to say, were not “shell-craters” scooped by volcanic bombs, but ordinary excavations dug by prosaic spades. Such was the simple basis of fact upon which the elaborate superstructure of Jaggar’s theory had been reared! Though Jaggar was, in a sense, entirely blameless, his theory was pure fiction from start to finish. No scientist present, however, took exception to it. On the contrary, all of them appeared perfectly satisfied with his pseudoscientific explanation.

If the foregoing incident conveys any lesson, it is this, that neither singly nor collectively are scientists exempt from error, especially when they deal with a remote past, which no one has observed. The attempt to reconstruct the past by means of inference alone produces, not history, but romance. Doctor Gregory’s genealogy of Man displayed in the American Museum is quite as much the fruit of imagination as Jaggar’s Kilauean fantasy. The sham pedigree bears like witness to the ingenuity of the human mind, but, if anyone is tempted by its false show of science to take it seriously, let him think of the bombs of Kenakakoe.

AFTERWORD

With the close of the nineteenth century the hour hand of biological science had completed another revolution. One after another, the classic systems of evolution had passed into the discard, as its remorseless progress registered their doom. The last of these systems, De-Vriesianism, enjoyed a meteoric vogue in the first years of the present century, but it, too, has gone into eclipse with the rise of rediscovered Mendelism. Notwithstanding all these reverses, however, the evolutionary theory still continues to number a host of steadfast adherents.

Some of its partisans uphold it upon antiquated grounds. Culturally speaking, such men still live in the days of Darwin, and fail to realize that much water has passed under the bridge since then. It has other protagonists, however, who are thoroughly conversant with modern data, and fully aware, in consequence, of the inadequacy of all existent formulations of the evolutional hypothesis. Minds of the latter type are proof, apparently, against any sort of disillusionment, and it is manifest that their attitude is determined by some consideration other than the actual results of research.

This other consideration is monistic metaphysics. In defect of factual confirmation, evolution is demonstrated aprioristically from the principle of the minimum. The scope of this methodological principle is to simplify or unify causation by dispensing with all that is superfluous in the way of explanation. In olden days, it went by the name of Occam’s Razor and was worded thus: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem—“Things are not to be multiplied without necessity.” Evolution meets the requirements of this principle. It simplifies the problem of organic origins by reducing the number of ancestors to a minimum. Therefore, argues the evolutionist, evolution must be true.

As an empirical rule, the principle of the minimum is, no doubt, essential to the scientific method. To erect it into a metaphysical axiom, however, is preposterous; for simple explanations are not necessarily true explanations. In the rôle of aprioristic metaphysics, the principle of continuity is destructive, and tends to plane down everything to the dead level of materialistic monism. For those who transcendentalize it, it becomes the principle “that everything is ‘nothing but’ something else, probably inferior to it.” (Santayana.) To assert continuity, they are driven to deny, or, at least, to leave unexplained and inexplicable, the obvious novelty that emerges at each higher level of the cosmic scale. And thus it comes to pass that intelligence is pronounced to be nothing but sense, and sense to be nothing but physiology, and physiology to be nothing but chemistry, and chemistry to be nothing but mechanics, until this philosophical nihilism weeps at last for want of further opportunities of devastation. Its exponents have an intense horror for abrupt transitions, and resent the discovery of anything that defies resolution into terms of mass and motion.

Evolution smooths the path for monism of this type by transforming nature’s staircase into an inclined plane of imperceptible ascent. Hence Dewey refers to evolution as a “clinching proof” of the continuity hypothecated by the monist. For the latter, there is no hierarchy of values, and all essential distinctions are abolished; for him nothing is unique and everything is equally important. He affirms the democracy of facts and is blind to all perspective in nature. He is, in short, the enemy of all beauty, all spirituality, all culture, all morality, and all religion. He substitutes neurons for the soul, and enthrones Natural Selection in the place of the Creator. He sets up, in a word, the ideal of “an animalistic man and a mechanistic universe,” and offers us evolution as a demonstration of this “ideal.”

Vernon Kellogg objects to our indictment. “The evolutionist,” he says, “does not like being called a bad man. He does not like being posted as an enemy of poetry and faith and religion. He does not like being defined as crassly materialist, a man exclusively of the earth earthy.” (Atlantic Monthly, April 24, 1924, p. 490.) Apart from their object, the likes or dislikes of an evolutionist are a matter of indifference. What we want to know is whether his dislike is merely for the names, or whether it extends to the reality denoted by these names. Human nature has a weakness for euphemisms. Men may “want the game without the name,” particularly when, deservedly or undeservedly, the name happens to have an offensive connotation.

There are, no doubt, evolutionists who mingle enough dualism with their philosophy to mitigate the most objectionable aspects of its basic monism. In so doing, however, they are governed by considerations that are wholly extraneous to evolutionary thought. Indeed, if we take Kellogg’s words at their face value (that is, in a sense which he would probably disclaim), it is in spite of his philosophy that the evolutionist is a spiritualist. “And just as religion and cheating,” reasons Kellogg, “can apparently be compassed in one man, so can one man be both evolutionist and idealist.” (Loc. cit., p. 490.) If this comparison holds true, the evolutionist can be an idealist only to the extent that he is inconsistent or hypocritical, since under no other supposition could piety and crime coëxist in one and the same person.

Be that as it may, the majority of evolutionists are avowed mechanists and materialists, in all that concerns the explanation of natural phenomena. “That there may be God who has put his Spirit into men” (Kellogg, ibid., p. 491), they are condescendingly willing to concede. And small credit to them for this; for who can disprove the existence of God, or the spirituality of the human soul? Nevertheless, it is impossible, they maintain, to be certain on these subjects. Natural science is in their eyes the only form of human knowledge that has any objective validity. Proofs of human spirituality they denounce as metaphysical, and metaphysics is for them synonymous with “such stuff as dreams are made of,” unworthy to be mentioned in the same breath with physical science—“Es gibt für uns kein anderes Erkennen als das mechanische, ... Nur mechanisch begreifen ist Wissenschaft.” (Du Bois-Reymond.)

In practice, therefore, if not in theory, the tendency of evolution has been to unspiritualize and dereligionize the philosophy of its adherents, a tendency which is strikingly exemplified in one of its greatest exponents, Charles Darwin himself. The English naturalist began his scientific career as a theist and a spiritualist. He ended it as an agnostic and a materialist. His evolutionary philosophy was, by his own confession, responsible for the transformation. “When thus reflecting,” he says, “I feel compelled to look to a first cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man, and I deserve to be called a Theist. This conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, as far as I remember, when I wrote the ‘Origin of Species’; and it is since that time that it has very gradually, with many fluctuations, become weaker. But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions? I can not pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I, for one, must be content to remain an Agnostic.” (“The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,” edited by Francis Darwin, 1887, vol. I, p. 282.)

Darwin likewise exemplifies in his own person the destructive influence exercised upon the æsthetic sense by exclusive adherence to the monistic viewpoint. Having alluded in his autobiography to his former predilection for poetry, music, and the beauties of nature, he continues as follows: “But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found that it nauseated me. I have also lost my taste for pictures and music.... I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did.... My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts; ... if I had to live my life again, I would have made it a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would have been kept alive through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.” (Op. cit., vol. I, pp. 81, 82.)

Evolution, we repeat, has brought us materialistic monism, in whose barren soil nor faith, nor idealism, nor morality, nor poesy, nor art, nor any of the finer things of life can thrive. To its dystelic and atomistic view, Nature has ceased to be the vicar of God, and material things are no longer sacramental symbols of eternal verities. It denies all design in Nature, and dismembers all beauty into meaningless fragments. It is so deeply engrossed in the contemplation of parts, that it has forgotten that there is any such thing as a whole. The rose and the bird-of-paradise are not ineffable messages from God to man; they are but accidental aggregates of colloidal molecules fortuitously assembled in the perpetual, yet aimless, flux of evolving matter.

From the standpoint of the moral and sociological consequences, however, the gravest count against evolution is the seeming support which this theory has given to the monistic conception of an animalistic man. Darwin’s doctrine on the bestial origin of man brought no other gain to natural science than the addition of one more unverified and unverifiable hypothesis to its already extensive stock of unfounded speculations. It did, however, work irreparable harm to millions of unlearned and credulous persons, whose childlike confidence the unscrupulous expounders of this doctrine have not hesitated to abuse. The exaggerations and misrepresentations of the latter met with an all too ready credence on the part of those who were not competent to discriminate between theory and fact. The sequel has been a wholesale abandonment of religious and moral convictions, which has ruined the lives and blighted the happiness of countless victims.

Has it been worth while, we may well ask of the propounders of this theory, to sacrifice so much in exchange for so little? The solid gain to natural science has been negligible, but the consequences of the blow unfairly dealt to morals and religion are incalculable and beyond the possibility of repair. “Morals and Religion,” says Newman, “are not represented to the intelligence of the world by intimations and notices strong and obvious such as those which are the foundation of physical science.... Instead of being obtruded on our notice, so that we cannot possibly overlook them, they are the dictates either of Conscience or of Faith. They are faint shadows and tracings, certain indeed, but delicate, fragile, and almost evanescent, which the mind recognizes at one time, not at another, discerns when it is calm, loses when it is in agitation. The reflection of sky and mountains in the lake is proof that sky and mountains are around it, but the twilight or the mist or the sudden thunderstorm hurries away the beautiful image, which leaves behind it no memorial of what it was.... How easily can we be talked out of our clearest views of duty; how does this or that moral precept crumble into nothing when we rudely handle it! How does the fear of sin pass off from us, as quickly as the glow of modesty dies away from the countenance! and then we say ‘It is all superstition.’ However, after a time, we look around, and then to our surprise we see, as before, the same law of duty, the same moral precepts, the same protest against sin, appearing over against us, in their old places, as if they had never been brushed away, like the Divine handwriting upon the wall at the banquet.” (“Idea of a University,” pp. 513-515.)

Had evolutionary enthusiasts adhered more strictly to the facts, had they proceeded in the spirit of scientific caution, had they shown, in fact, even so much as a common regard for the simple truth, the “progress of science” would not have been achieved at the expense of morals and religion. As it is, this so-called progress has left behind a wake of destruction in the shape of undermined convictions, blasted lives, crimes, misery, despair, and suicide. It has, in short, contributed largely to the present sinister and undeserved triumph of Materialism, Agnosticism, and Pessimism, which John Talbot Smith has so fittingly characterized as the three D’s of dirt, doubt, and despair. A little less sensationalism, a little more conscientiousness, a little more of that admirable quality, scientific caution, and the concord of faith and reason would have become a truism instead of a problem. But such regrets are vain. The evil effects are here to stay, and nothing can undo the past.

If man is but a higher kind of brute, if he has no unique, immortal principle within him, if his free will is an illusion, if his conduct is the necessary resultant of chemical reactions occurring in his protoplasm, if he is nothing more than an automaton of flesh, a mere decaying organism which is the sport of all the blind physical forces and stimuli playing upon it, if he has no prospect of a future life of retribution, if he is unaccountable to any higher authority, Divine or human, then morality ceases to have a meaning, right and wrong lose their significance, virtue and vice are all the same. The constancy of the martyr and the patriotism of the fallen soldier become unintelligible folly, while a heartless and infamous sensualism preying vulturelike upon the carrion of human misery and corruption is to be reckoned the highest expression of wisdom and efficiency. The grandest ideals that have inspired enthusiasm and devotion in human breasts are but idle dreams and worthless delusions. From a world which accepts this degraded view of human nature all heroism and chivalry must vanish utterly; for it will recognize no loftier incentives to action than pleasure and love of self.

Such doctrines, too, are essentially antisocial. They destroy the very foundation of altruism. To seek immortality in the effects of one’s unselfish deeds becomes ridiculous. For what assurance can we have that the fruits of our sacrifice will be acceptable to a progressive posterity, or what difference will our self-denial make, when the whole human species shall have become extinct on the desolate surface of a dying world? Without an adequate motivation for altruism, however, the existence of society becomes impossible, since self-interest is not a feasible substitute. To urge the observance of social laws on the ground that they protect person, life, and property, will hardly appeal to men who have no possessions to be protected nor a comfortable life to be prolonged. Yet the major portion of mankind are in this category. For such the laws can mean nothing more than artificial corruptions, of the natural and primitive order of things introduced for the special benefit of the rich and powerful.

Under circumstances of this sort, no plea avails to silence the heralds of revolt. If there is no future life for the righting of present injustices, then naught remains but to terminate the prosperity of the wicked here and now. If there is no heaven for man beyond the grave, then it behooves everyone to get all the enjoyment he can out of the present life. It is high time, therefore, that this earthly heaven of mankind should cease to be monopolized by a few coupon-holding capitalists and become, instead, the property of the expropriated proletariat. Anarchy and Socialism are the consequences which the logic of the situation inexorably portends. The starving swine must hurl their bloated brethren from the trough that the latter have heretofore reserved for themselves. The sequel, of course, can be none other than the complete disintegration of civilization and its ultimate disappearance in a hideous vortex of carnage, rapine, and barbarity.

Nor is this prognosis based on pure conjecture. In proportion as these pernicious doctrines have gained ground, modern society has become infected with the virus of animalism, egoism, and perfidy; expediency has been substituted for honor; and purity has been replaced by prophylaxis. One could not, of course, expect to see a universal and thoroughgoing application of these principles in the concrete. The materialistic view of human nature is horribly unnatural, and, in practice, would be quite unbearable. Natural human goodness and even the mere instinct of self-preservation militate against a reduction to the concrete of this inhuman conception, and these tend, in real life, to mitigate the evil effects of its acceptance. Nevertheless, the actual consequences resulting from the spread of evolutionary principles are so conspicuous and appalling as to leave no doubt whatever of the deadly nature of this philosophy.

Marxian Socialism has been called “scientific” for no other reason than that it is based upon materialistic evolution, and this scientific socialism has brought upon modern Russia a reign of terror, which eclipses that of France in the bloodiest days of the Revolution. Eleanor Marx, it will be remembered, after falling a victim to her father’s teachings regarding “free love,” committed suicide. The same confession of failure has been made by two recent editors of the socialist Appeal to Reason (J. W. Wayland and J. O. Welday), both of whom committed suicide. These are but a few of the many instances that might be cited to show that the life philosophy inculcated by materialistic evolution is so intolerably unnatural and revolting that neither society nor the individual can survive within the lethal shadow of its baleful influence.

But may not the extreme materialism and pessimism of this view be peculiar to the sordid and joyless outlook of the social malcontent? Does not evolutionary thought conduce to something finer and more hopeful in the case of the progressive and optimistic liberal? Vain hope! We cannot console ourselves with any delusions on this score. Liberalism proclaims the emancipation of humanity from all authority, and the rejection of a future life of retribution is the indispensable premise of the doctrine that makes man a law unto himself. Hence, wherever Liberalism controls the tongues of educators, the human soul becomes a myth, religion a superstition, and immortality an anodyne for mental weaklings. Strong-minded truth-seekers are advised to abandon these irrational beliefs, and to adopt the “New Religion,” which dispenses once for all with God and the hereafter. “The new religion,” says Charles Eliot, ex-President of Harvard, “will not attempt to reconcile people to present ills by the promise of future compensation. I believe that the advent of just freedom has been delayed for centuries by such promises. Prevention will be the watchword of the new religion, and a skillful surgeon will be one of its ministers. It cannot supply consolation as offered by old religions, but it will reduce the need of consolation.” (“The New Religion.”)

Again, it may be objected that evolutionists, for all their agnosticism and materialism, frequently put Christians to shame by their irreproachably upright and moral lives. That they sometimes succeed in doing this cannot be gainsaid. But they do so because they borrow their moral standards from Christianity, and do not follow the logical consequences of their own principles. Their morality, therefore, is parasitic, as Balfour has wisely observed, and it will soon die out when the social environment shall have been sufficiently de-Christianized. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,” is their proper philosophy of life, only they have not the courage of their convictions. For the rest, their philosophical convictions have nothing in common with the moral standards which they actually observe. In fact, not only does the monism of evolutionary science fail to motivate the Christian code of morals, but it is radically and irreconcilably opposed to all that Christianity stands for. Hartmann, a modern philosopher, notes with grim satisfaction the clash of the two viewpoints, and predicts (with what, perhaps, is premature assurance) the ultimate triumph of “modern progress.” “Many there are,” he tells us, “who speak and write of the struggle of civilization, but few there are who realize that this struggle is the last desperate stand of the Christian ideal before its final disappearance from the world, and that modern civilization is prepared to resort to any means rather than relinquish those things, which it has won at the cost of such great toil. For modern civilization and Christianity are antagonistic to each other, and it is therefore inevitable that one give place to the other. Modern progress can acknowledge no God save one immanent to the world and opposed to the transcendent God of Christian revelation, nor other morality save only that true kind whose source is the human will determining itself by itself and becoming a law unto itself.” (“Religion de l’avernir.”)

The World War has done much to dampen the ardor of those who looked forward with enthusiasm to the millennium of a purely scientific religion. In this spectacular lesson they have learned that science can destroy as well as build. They have come to see that biology, physics, and chemistry are morally colorless, and that we must go outside the realm of natural science when we are in quest of that which can give meaning to our lives and noble inspiration to our conduct. When science supersedes religion, the result is always disillusionment following in the wreck-strewn wake of moral and physical disaster.

Recently, the chancellor of a great university has seen fit publicly to disclaim, in the name of his institution, all responsibility for a crime committed by two members of the student body. The young men involved in this affair had performed an experimental murder. The experimenters, it would seem, were unable to discriminate between man and beast. They had been taught by their professors that scientific psychology dispenses with the soul, and that the difference between men and brutes is one of degree only, and not of kind. Even that negligible distinction, they were told, had been bridged by evolution. In the sequel, the young men failed, apparently, to see why vivisection, which was right in the case of animals, should be wrong in the case of human beings. Their astounding obtuseness on this particular point was, of course, exceedingly regrettable and hard to understand. Yet, somehow, one cannot help thinking but that their education was largely responsible for it.

In the startling crime of these students, modern educators will find much food for serious thought. It should give pause to those, especially, who have been overzealous in popularizing the Darwinian conception of human nature. Let men of this type reflect upon what slender grounds their dogmatism rests, and let them then weigh well the gravity of the responsibility, which they incur. Tuccimei summarizes for them, in the following terms, the nature and extent of their accountability:

“This perverse determination to place man and brutes in the same category, interests me not so much from the scriptural standpoint as for reasons moral and social. Science, as the more moderate of our adversaries have told us often enough, does not assail religion, but proceeds on its way regardless of the consequences. And the consequences we see only too plainly, now that the evolutionary philosophy has invaded every branch of knowledge and walk of life, and has seeped down among the ignorant and turbulent masses. These consequences are known as socialism and anarchy. The protagonists of the new philosophy strove to repudiate them at first: but now many of their number have laid aside even this pretense. Socialistic doctrines are based exclusively upon our assumed kinship with the brutes, and the leaders of militant socialism have inscribed on the frontispieces of their books the chain fatally logical and terribly true of three names, Darwin, Spencer, Marx.

“In truth, our common origin with the brutes being taken for granted, why should we not enjoy in common with them the right to gratify every instinct? Social inequalities are the product of laws and conventionalities willed by the rich and powerful. In the natural and primitive state of things they did not exist; why not proceed then to a general leveling of the existing social order?

“Such an origin of the human race being assumed, the existence of the soul and a future life becomes a myth invented by the priests of the various religions. With this inconvenient restraint removed, there remains no alternative save to aspire to the acquisition of all the pleasures of life; and for him who lacks the wherewithal to procure them for himself there remains no other recourse than to seek them by means of violence or strategy. Hence anarchy. In this supposition, morality no longer possesses that sole, true, and efficacious sanction which religion alone can furnish; it amounts to nothing more than the resultant of the evolution of the individual’s perfections and their coördination to the well-being of his race and of society. But if, by reason of retarded evolution, the social instincts have not progressed to the point of repressing the individual or egoistic instincts, what guilt will there be in the delinquent who lapses into the most atrocious crimes? Hence free will is another myth that positive psychology and the science of moral statistics have already been at pains to explode.

“And behold the suffering, the unfortunate, and the dying deprived of their sole consolation, the last hope which faith held out to them, and society reduced to an inferno of desperadoes and suicides! I could go on showing in this way, to what a pass the evolutionistic theories bring society and the individual.” (“La teoria dell’ evoluzione e le sue applicazioni,” p. 46.)

GLOSSARY

INDEX TO AUTHORS

• Adami, J. G., 57.
• Aeby, Christoph Theod., 274.
• Æsop, 246.
• Alsberg, Moritz, 317.
• Altman, Richard, 141.
• Aquinas, St. Thomas, 32, 73, 268, 343.
• Aristotle, 133, 155, 172, 174, 192, 196, 197, 200, 202, 214, 215, 227, 230.
• Armstrong, H. E., 190.
• Arrhénius, Svante, 166, 167, 182, 183, 184.
• Augustine, St., 32, 73, 74, 75.
• Bach, Alexis, 145, 146.
• Bacon, Francis, 86, 87.
• Bagg, H. J., 266.
• Balfour, Arthur James, 358.
• Ballou, W. H., 318.
• Bardon, L., 330.
• Bastian, Charlton, 165.
• Bateson, Wm., 1, 5, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 25, 28, 30, 43, 44, 73, 84, 85, 88, 145, 146, 334.
• Bather, F. A., 3, 40, 76, 77, 86, 87, 90, 91, 92, 93.
• Baudlisch, Oscar, 148.
• Baur, E., 88.
• Beddoe, 333.
• Bergson, Henri, 262.
• Bernouilli, Jacques, 248.
• Bey, Pruner-, 324.
• Binet, Alfred, 220.
• Biot, Jean Baptiste, 135.
• Blackwelder, Eliot, 117.
• Blake, C. Carter, 324.
• Blakeslee, Albert F., 17, 21, 22, 23.
• Blanford, Wm. Thomas, 95.
• Boule, Marcellin, 332.
• Bouvier, E. L., 239, 260, 261, 265.
• Bouyssonie, A. J. & P., 330.
• Boveri, Th., 139.
• Branco, W., 344.
• Breuil, Abbé Henri, 290, 342.
• Brown, Barnum, 270, 310.
• Bryan, Wm. Jennings, 1, 343.
• Buffon, C. L., 305.
• Bühler, Karl, 218, 220.
• Bumüller, J., 273, 274.
• Burroughs, John, 244.
• Burton-Opitz, Russel, 299.
• Calkins, Gary N., 39, 40, 161.
• Campbell, Marius Robinson, 107 note
• Carazzi, D., 304.
• Castle, W. E., 43.
• Caullery, Maurice, 12, 28, 29, 277.
• Chamberlain, T. C., 125.
• Chetverikov, S. S., 115, 116.
• Chiesa, Luigi, 210.
• Clausen, Roy Elwood, 26.
• Clemont, 324.
• Clifford, Wm. Kingdon, 237.
• Cohn, Ferd. Jul., 182.
• Coleman, Arthur P., 113, 114, 115.
• Comte, (Isidore) Auguste, 225, 226.
• Conklin, E. G., 270.
• Copernicus, Nicholas, XII, XIII.
• Coulter, John Merle, 24.
• Creighton, J. E., 238.
• Croll, James, 290.
• Crookes, Sir Wm., 183.
• Cuvier, Georges, 67, 72, 76, 90, 91, 102.
• Dana, James Dwight, 111, 114, 117, 270.
• Darwin, Charles, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 24, 30, 32, 65, 68, 75, 81, 152, 191, 194, 236, 238, 245, 246, 269, 277, 286, 287, 288, 290, 295, 296, 297, 298, 302, 305, 307, 338, 349, 352, 353, 360.
• Da Vinci, Leonardo, 257.
• Davis, Bradley Moore, 25, 26, 27, 28.
• Davis, J. Barnard, 324.
• Dawson, Sir John William, 345.
• Dawson, Charles, 320.
• Deaver, J. B., 295.
• De Chardin, Teilhard, 320.
• De Geer, Gerard, 289.
• Delage, Yves, 127, 150, 151.
• De Mattos, Alexander Teixeira, 247 note.
• De Puydt, Marcel, 326.
• Descartes, René, 172, 197, 198, 202, 231, 249.
• De Vires, Hugo, 16, 17, 20.
• Dewey, John, 350.
• Dorlodot, Canon Henri de, XII, 31, 34, 47, 70, 74.
• Dreisch, Hans, 12, 70, 172, 174, 190, 202, 244, 252.
• Dubois, Eugène, 313, 314, 316, 318.
• Du Bois-Reymond, Emil, 11, 268, 277, 352.
• Dumas, Jean Baptiste, 135.
• Duponceau, Pierre Étienne, 338.
• Dupont, André Hubert, 326.
• Dwight, Thomas, 36, 51, 59, 274, 275, 278, 285, 303, 304, 309, 319, 320, 328, 336, 337.
• Ecclesiastes, 192.
• Ehrlich, Paul, 57.
• Eimer, Th., 7.
• Eliot, Charles W., 358.
• Evans, Sir Arthur, 339.
• Ezekiel, 89.
• Fabre, J. H., 240, 247 note, 249, 251, 252, 254, 258, 260, 263, 264, 265, 266.
• Fechner, Gustav Theodor, 149.
• Fenton, Henry John H., 146.
• Fischer, Emil, 145.
• Fleischmann, Albert, 12.
• Flemming, W., 137.
• Fontaine, T., 208.
• Fraipont, Julien, 327.
• Fuhlrott, C., 323.
• Galiani, 11.
• Galilei, Galileo, XII, XIII.
• Garbowski, Thad., 284.
• Gaskell, Walter Holbrook, 293, 294.
• Gatenby, J. B., 140.
• Geikie, Sir Archibald, 96, 97, 107 note.
• Gerard, John, S.J., 82.
• Goodrich, Edwin S., 15, 62.
• Goodspeed, T. H., 26.
• Grabau, Amadeus, Wm., 335.
• Grassi, B., 66.
• Gray, Henry, 299.
• Gregory, W. K., 270, 309, 310, 311, 318, 348.
• Grignard, Victor, 209.
• Gruender, Hubert, 233 note.
• Gummersbach, Joseph, 247 note.
• Guyer, M. F., 15, 266.
• Haacke, Joh. Wilh., 275, 317.
• Haeckel, Ernest, 33, 48, 89, 138, 186, 237, 275, 277, 278, 345.
• Hamann, Joh. Georg, 149.
• Handlirsch, Anton, 115.
• Hartmann, Karl Robert Eduard von, 358.
• Harvey, William, 155.
• Haswell, Wm. A., 316, 317.
• Hauser, O., 329.
• Hayes, Charles Willard, 107 note.
• Heilprin, Angelo, 120, 121.
• Heim, Albert, 107 note.
• Helmholtz, Herman von, 182, 298.
• Henderson, Lawrence J., 6, 153, 175, 176, 179.
• Hertwig, Oskar, 284.
• Hertwig, Richard, 315.
• Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 127.
• Holworth, Sir Henry, 98.
• Horace, 54, 109.
• Howe, John Allen, 104, 105.
• Howell, Wm. H. 299.
• Hrdlička, A., 316, 318, 319, 322, 323, 325, 328, 329, 331, 332.
• Hubrecht, Ambrosius Arnold William, 309, 317.
• Hume, David, 198.
• Huxley, Thomas H., 20, 67, 76, 98, 111 note, 236, 237, 314, 325, 333.
• Jaggar, T. A., Jr., 346, 347, 348.
• James, William, 205, 206, 212, 249.
• Jennings, H. S., 250.
• Johnson, Dr. George, XVI.
• Jordan, David Starr, 4, 18, 28.
• Jörgensen, J., 146, 147.
• Judd, J. W., 94.
• Kammerer, Paul, 14, 266.
• Kant, Immanuel, 198.
• Keen, W. W., 48.
• Keith, Arthur, 319, 322, 328, 332, 336, 337.
• Kellogg, Vernon I., 46 note, 53 note, 350, 351.
• Kerr, J. Graham, 280, 282, 284.
• Keyser, C. J., 204.
• Kidd, F., 146.
• Klaatsch, A., 308, 309, 312, 317, 326, 328, 330.
• Koenen, C., 326.
• Kofoid, Charles A., 118, 162.
• Kohlbrugge, J. H. F., 274, 275, 277, 285, 308.
• Kölliker, Rudolph Albert, 7.
• Kollman, Julius, 285, 286, 317.
• Kramberger, K. Gorjanović, 320, 333.
• Lamarck, Jean Baptiste, 8, 9, 16, 30, 32, 65, 286, 290.
• Lankester, E. Ray, 186.
• Laplace, Pierre Simon, 181.
• Lebedeff, 183.
• Le Conte, Joseph N., 345.
• Lee, 333.
• Leydig, Franz, 137.
• Linné, Carl von, 4.
• Loeb, Jacques, 159, 249, 250, 252, 264.
• Lohest, Maximin, 326.
• Lotsy, J. P., 25.
• Lucretius, 30.
• Lull, Richard S., 115.
• Macalister, R. A. S., 342.
• MacCurdy, George Grant, 317, 326, 329, 331, 332.
• MacDowell, E. C., 266.
• MacManus, T., 359.
• Macnamara, N. C., 314, 325.
• Manouvrier, L., 316, 333.
• Marx, Karl, 360.
• Mathews, Albert, 293, 294, 302.
• Maxwell, J. Clerk, 183.
• McCann, Alfred W., 31, 32, 33, 34, 47, 50, 51.
• McConnell, R. G., 107, note, 109.
• McGregor, J. H., 315, 316, 317, 320, 322.
• Melanchthon, Phillip, 197.
• Mendel, Gregor Johann, 3, 24, 27, 28, 32.
• Mendeléef, Dimitri Ivanovitch, 56.
• Mercier, Désiré Cardinal, 204, 205, 208.
• Meyer, Ludwig, 302, 324.
• Michael Angelo, 257.
• Miller, Arthur M., 97, 98.
• Miller, Gerrit, 321.
• Minchin, E. A., 5.
• Moore, Benjamin F., 150, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170.
• Morgan, C. Lloyd, 233 note, 234 note, 237.
• Morgan, Thomas Hunt, 12, 16, 36, 44, 64, 85, 86, 88, 89, 276, 278, 306, 334.
• Morton, Dudley J., 270.
• Muckermann, H., S.J., 325.
• Müller, Fritz, 48, 275, 278.
• Müller, Max, 338.
• Nägeli, Karl Wilhelm, 7, 186.
• Newman, John Henry, 354.
• Newell, Bro. Matthias, 347.
• Newton, Sir Isaac, XIII.
• Nicholson, Henry Alleyne, 97, 272.
• Nicomachus, 196.
• Obermaier, Hugues, 289, 290, 324, 327, 329, 342.
• Occam, William of, 67, 349.
• Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 2, 33, 65, 70, 76, 88, 89, 90, 170, 289, 290, 309, 318, 342.
• Paley, William, 11.
• Parker, G. H., 9, 233 note, 295.
• Parker, T. Jeffery, 316, 317.
• Pasteur, Louis, 135, 181.
• Paulsen, Friederich, 206.
• Pawlow, Ivan, 242, 249, 266.
• Pearson, Karl, 310.
• Peckham, Geo. W. and Eliz. G., 265.
• Perrier, Remy, 296.
• Pfizenmayer, E., 91, 92.
• Pictet, Amé, 143.
• Pirrson, L. V., 107 note, 109.
• Plato, 172, 197.
• Poulton, Edward B., 186.
• Price, George McCready, 97, 98, 99, 100, 104, 105, 107, 109, 110, 120.
• Price, T. S., 167.
• Quatrefages De Breau, Jean Louis Armand de, 276.
• Ranke, J., 271, 272, 273, 274, 324.
• Rautert, 326.
• Ray, John, 5, 20.
• Redi, Francesco, 134, 136, 137.
• Reinke, J., 345, 346.
• Renner, O., 16.
• Richter, Herm. Eberh., 182.
• Riddle, Oscar, 300.
• Robinson, James Harvey, 190, 194, 195, 236.
• Rösch, Joseph, 318.
• Rothpletz, Aug., 107 note.
• Russell, Bertrand, 204.
• Santayana, George, 350.
• Sapir, Edward, 338.
• Schaaffhausen, D., 150, 325, 333.
• Schäfer, E. A., 58, 165, 179, 184, 185.
• Schleiden, Matthias J., 136.
• Schmidt, H. D., 260.
• Schoetensack, Otto, 318, 319.
• Schroeder, Ch. F., 251.
• Schuchert, Charles, 97, 98, 104 note, 106, 109, 110.
• Schultze, F. E., 218.
• Schultze, Max, 137, 138.
• Schwalbe, Gust. Alb., 286, 317, 324, 325, 333.
• Schwann, Theodor, 136.
• Scott, Wm. B., 78, 96, 103, 119, 120.
• Sedgwick, A., 95.
• Sellars, R. W., 233 note.
• Sewall, Anna, 236.
• Smith, G. Elliot, 289, 341.
• Smith, John Talbot, 355.
• Smith, William, 102.
• Snell, Karl, 308.
• Sollas, W. J., 289.
• Spallanzani, Lazzaro, 134, 136.
• Spencer, Herbert, 10, 12, 98, 102, 103, 148, 166, 179, 360.
• Starling, Ernest H., 57, 299, 301.
• Stockard, Charles R., 62.
• Stoll, A., 146.
• Taylor, J., 340.
• Tertullian, 346.
• Thayer, Wm. Sydney, 135.
• Tholuck, Fried. Aug., 338.
• Thompson, Sir Wm., 182.
• Thorndyke, Edward L., 237.
• Tilden, Sir Wm., 151, 192.
• Titchener, Edward Bradford, 205, 209, 274.
• Tredgold, A. F., 15 note.
• Tuccimei, Giuseppe, XIII, 360, 361.
• Tyndall, John, 149.
• Vallisnieri, Antonio, 134.
• Van Loon, Hendrick Willem, 190.
• Vegard, Lars, 183 note.
• Vicari, E. M., 266, 267.
• Virchow, Rudolph, 137, 273, 316, 317, 324, 346.
• Vogt, Carl, 276, 324.
• Waagen, W., 16 note.
• Warner, H., 274.
• Walkhoff, O., 317.
• Walsh, James J., 336.
• Ward, James, 163.
• Wasmann, Erich, S.J., XII, 11, 33, 46, 47, 48, 49, 49 note, 67, 70, 134, 247 note, 261, 262, 277, 312, 313, 325, 333.
• Waterston, David, 322.
• Watson, John B., 198, 204, 250.
• Wayland, John Walter, 357.
• Weismann, August, 10, 13, 16, 25, 65, 186, 267.
• Weber, Ernest Heinrich, 227.
• Weld, H. P., 253, 255.
• Welday, J. O., 357.
• Wells, H. G., 1, 33, 190.
• Wenstrup, Edward, O.S.B., XVI.
• Werner, Abraham Gottlob, 99, 102, 103.
• Wheeler, Geo. C. and Esther H., 261.
• Wiedersheim, Robert, 292.
• Wilder, Harris Hawthorne, 300, 301.
• Williams, H. S., 96.
• Willis, Bailey, 107 note.
• Willstätter, R., 146, 147.
• Wilson, Edmund B., 6, 12, 13, 140, 141, 143, 160, 164, 168, 170, 200, 201, 211.
• Windle, Bertram C. A., 134, 341.
• Wirth, Edmund J., 205.
• Wissler, Clark, 344.
• Woodruff, Lorande Loss, 39, 115.
• Woods, Henry, 77, 78, 79, 80, 86, 118, 119.
• Woodward, A. Smith, 321, 322, 340, 341.
• Woodworth, Robert S., 198.
• Wright, C. F., 289.
• Wundt, Wilhelm, 197, 205, 206, 209, 212, 236, 237, 238.
• Zahm, J. A., 268.
• Zeno, 226.
• Zittel, Karl A. von, 313, 345.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS — FOOTNOTES:

• Abiogenesis, 131, 135, 136, 142, 160, 165, 167, 179, 183, 186;
• “new theory” of, 165;
• “old theory” of, 165;
• “philosophical” proof of, 186
• Absence of function, real, 291;
• apparent, 291
• Abstract concept, 219
• Abstraction, 221, 224, 254, 261, 262;
• of active intellect predispositive, 221;
• of intellect, potential, cognitive, 221;
• power of, 261, 262;
• process of, 221, 224
• Abstract thought, 215, 267;
• has soul as its exclusive agent and subject, 215;
• not same as imagery, 215;
• unique prerogative of man, 267
• Acids, butyric, 159;
• carbonic, 145;
• fatty, 145;
• formic, 145
• Acromegaly, 294
• Acromikria, 294
• Act, 199
• Action, 174, 175, 176, 177, 215, 216;
• agent of, 176;
• an expression of entity, 125, 216;
• chemical, 175;
• effect of, 176, 177;
• electrical, 176;
• energy-content of, 174;
• immanent, defined, 177;
• mechanical, 175;
• physical, 175;
• reflexive, 177;
• subject of, 176;
• transitive, 174, 177;
• defined, 177;
• vital, 175
• Active intellect, 220, 221
• Activity, organic cannot escape physical determinism, 232
• Adaptation, 7, 8, 9, 16, 45, 46, 47, 52, 53, 63, 124, 250, 290, 291, 328;
• acquired, 8, 9, 16, 45, 290, 328, 333
• —not inheritable, 9;
• innate (inherited), 45, 46, 47, 52, 53, 63, 124;
• of instinctive behavior to emergencies, 250;
• structural, 291
• Additive properties, 233 note
• Adjustments, 204
• Adolescence, 155
• Adrenal bodies, 292, 295
• Adults, 276
• Aeschna grandis L., 115
• Aftermath of evolutionary propaganda, 360
• Agametes, 156
• Agamic, 156
• Agent, 171, 177
• Age of Man, 289, 290
• Agnosticism, 352, 355, 358;
• parasitic, 358
• Agulhas, Lost Land of, 114
• Alberta, 108
• Albumen, living and dead, 144
• Alcohol, methyl, 147;
• phytyl, 147
• Aldehyde, 145, 148
• Aldol condensation, 145
• Allelomorphic, 42
• Allocation, taxonomic, 320
• Alluvial epoch, 313;
• loam, 324
• Alpha Centauri, 184
• Alps, 109
• Altamira, caves of, 339, 340, 343
• Alternating personalities, 211;
• psychopathic condition, 211
• Altruism, 355, 356;
• without adequate motivation, 356
• Amboceptors, 57
• American Association for Advancement of Science, 343, 344;
• Edict of, 343
• Ammonites, 84, 86, 249;
• intergradence in, 84
• Ammonium cyanate, 173
• Ammophila, 264
• Ammophila gryphus, 261
• Ammophila urnaria, 261
• Amnion, 276
• Amœba albida, 159
• Amphibia, 61, 281, 296
• Amphioxus, 60, 161
• Analogous organs, 35, 36, 61
• Analogy, 35, 59, 60;
• convergent, 61
• Analysis, 144;
• chemical, 144;
• physical, 144
• Anarchy, 355, 360
• Anatomists, 296
• Anatomy, 196, 208, 276, 277, 303, 308;
• comparative, 276, 277, 308;
• of consciousness, attempted by Associationists, 208
• Ancestors, 55, 59, 76, 82, 83, 92, 95, 115, 270, 280, 296, 304, 308, 309, 317, 349;
• collateral, 76;
• common, 55, 59, 83, 92, 269, 270, 278, 308;
• direct, 76;
• hypothetical, 308, 309, 317;
• necessary priority of, 82, 83;
• of man, 298
• —alleged to be fish-like, 280;
• tertiary, 270
• Ancestry, 92, 280;
• entails antecedence in time, 92;
• of man, 280
• Ancitherium, 76
• Angiosperms, 72, 73
• Animal, 242, 249, 307;
• appetite, gratification of, 242;
• as “reflex machines,”249;
• cave, 307
• Animalism, 365
• Animalistic man, 350, 352
• Animality of man, not a modern discovery, 191, 192
• Animism, 197, 198
• Anisogametes, 157, 158
• Anisogamy, 157, 158
• Annelida, 117, 278, 280
• Anomalies, 112, 303, 305, 319, 320;
• anatomical, fluctuational, 303;
• mutational, 303;
• of spatial distributions, 112
• Antagonism, 358;
• between modern progress and Christian ideal, 358
• Anthropomorphism, 236, 246, 250, 262;
• Darwinian, 236, 250
• Anthropologists, 318, 344;
• foremost ones confess their ignorance regarding origin of man, 344
• Antibodies, 14, 15
• Antigen, 15
• Antirrhinum, majus and molle, 88
• Anti-vivisectionists, 236
• Ants, 261, 262;
• leaf-cutting, 261
• Ape, 245, 270, 272, 275, 285, 308, 309, 311, 314, 315, 316, 317, 345;
• anthropoid, 270, 271, 272, 275, 309, 315, 317;
• cranial capacity, 314;
• descended from man-like ancestor, 285;
• descent from, not a doctrine of science, 345;
• embryonic skull of, 285;
• foot of, 50, 51
• —a hand functionally but not structurally, 50, 51;
• fossil, 308, 313;
• giant, geneological tree of, 315;
• higher, 311;
• its cranium, 271;
• large, 315;
• living, 308
• Ape-like features, acquired adaptation, 330
• Appalachians, 107
• Appetite, 221, 235, 241;
• rational, 221;
• sensual, 235, 241
• Appendicitis, 295
• Appendix, vermiform, 295, 296;
• useful, 296
• Apple-tree, 6, 88, 161
• Apterix, 305
• Arbacia punctulata, 159
• Arboreal life, 271, 308
• Arca, 118
• Archæan, 104, 117;
• record, damaged condition of, 117
• Archæology, prehistoric, 339
• Archæopteryx, 86
• Archæozoic, 104, 148;
• times alleged to have been more favorable to origin of life, 148
• Argument, 226;
• no avail against fact, 226
• Art, palæolithic, 340
• Artefacts, 154
• Artemia salina, 159
• Artemisia absynthium, 248
• Arthropoda, 61, 119, 261, 284
• Artificial illumination, 340
• Artistic attainment, high level of, 340
• Artists, palæolithic, 335
• Asia, 335
• Ass, 5, 81, 304
• Assimilation, 143
• Association, 208, 235, 241, 242
• Associationists, 208, 236
• Astarte, 118
• Asteroidea, 121, 122
• Atavism, 303, 304
• Atlantis, 114
• Atmosphere, 148, 181, 183;
• coronal of sun, 183;
• formerly richer in carbon dioxide, 148;
• of earth, 183
• Atoms, 58, 144, 162, 165, 167, 170, 202;
• structure of, 58
• Atrophy, 285, 286, 288, 294, 299, 301, 302, 307;
• due to misuse, 288;
• somatic, 307
• Attention, 208
• Audist, 219
• Aurignacian Man, 332
• Aurora borealis, 183, 183 note, 184 note
• Australian, 321, 325, 328, 330, 333;
• blacks, 325, 333
• —modern, have brow ridges, 328;
• modern, 325, 330;
• skull of, 321
• Author of Nature, 193
• Autogamy, 158, 159, 161
• Automatisms, 238, 240, 262;
• teleological, 240
• Automixis, 161
• Autonomy, 174, 202;
• dynamic, 174;
• vital, 202
• Axiom, 223, 224;
• of reception, 223, 224
• Axon, 213
• Azoic bottom, 125
• Babylonia, 337
• Bacteria, 135, 138, 183, 183 note
• Barbarism, 337;
• historically a state of degeneration and stagnation, 337;
• not a primitive condition, 337;
• no instance of spontaneous emergence from, 337
• Bacteriologists, 183
• Baltic Sea, 104, 105
• Banana, 162
• Basichromatin, 139
• Bear Grass quarries, 106
• Beaver, 247, 257
• Bedding plane, 106
• Bees, 257
• Beetles, wingless, 306
• Behavior, 249, 254, 255, 260, 261, 262, 263;
• instinctive, 249, 254, 255, 260
• —objectively useful, 254, 255
• —subjectively agreeable, 254, 255;
• concursively telic, 260-262;
• consciously telic, i. e., intelligent 262;
• unconcursively telic, 262;
• must be perfect from outstart, 263
• Behaviorism, degeneration of psychology into, 198
• Behaviorists, 204, 250
• Bestial man, 340, 342;
• impossible, 340;
• no traces of, 342
• Bestial origin, 345, 352;
• of man, 352;
• of man, theory of, 345
• Bestial soul, 114, 194, 213, 214, 234;
• an emergent of matter, 194, 234 note
• —not a product of physicochemical action, 194;
• exists in the interest of the organism, 214;
• incomplete complement of matter, 213;
• material but not corporeal, 194, 214;
• operates only in conjunction with organism, 213;
• perishes with dissolution of organism, 213
• Bible, 127
• Biochemists, 179
• Biogenetic Law, 48, 275, 276, 277, 278, 283, 285
• Biologists, 2, 3, 11, 19, 29, 53 note, 190, 200, 257
• Biology, xiv, 24, 196, 197, 205
• Bion, 170, 171
• Biophysicists, 179
• Bipinnaria, 283
• “Biotic energy,”170
• Bird of Paradise, 154, 353
• Birds, 282, 296, 297
• Bison, 331, 332
• “Black Beauty,”236
• Blackberries, 25
• Blindness, germinal and somatic, 306
• Blue-green Algæ, 138, 149, 181
• Body, 198
• Bone cave, 340
• Bone fibres, 317
• Bos primigenius, 329
• Botany, 31, 55
• Brachiopoda, 117, 118, 120
• Bradypus, 52
• Brain, 274, 315, 316;
• human, 274
• —convolutions of, 274;
• relative and absolute size of, 315;
• relative size of, 316;
• simian, 274
• Brain case, 272
• Brain cavities, below modern average, 329
• Brain-fag, due to imaginative, not to intellectual activity, 228, 229, 230;
• follows mere memorizing, 229
• Branchial arches and clefts, 278, 279
• Branchial lamellæ, 279
• Breasts, supernumerary, 304
• Broken Hill Mine, 340
• Bronze Age, historic, 337
• Brow ridges, 328, 330, 333, 341;
• most pronounced of any human specimen, 341
• Brute, 213, 233, 235, 236, 360;
• destitute of freedom, morality, responsibility, 233;
• its psychic functions, all organic, 213;
• lumination of, 236;
• our common origin with, 360
• Budding, 156
• Burial, 330, 335;
• deep, 335;
• makes age of bones uncertain, 335;
• solemn, indicates belief in immortality, 330
• Butyric acid, 159
• Cæcum, 295
• Cænogenesis, 277, 288
• Cænozoic, 118, 119, 335
• Calcium hydroxide, 145
• Calicurgus, 263
• Cambrian, 99, 100, 104, 105, 110, 116, 117, 118, 125;
• Lower, 117;
• terranes below, 125;
• youthful appearance of, 104, 105
• Canadian Shield, 104 note
• Canadian survey, 108
• Canal, alimentary, 293, 295, 301;
• neural, 293
• Canalization, 265
• Carbohydrates, 145, 148;
• production of, by plants, 145-148
• —not a synthesis, 146-148
• —analogous to process in animals, 146, 147
• Carbon dioxide, 145-147
• Carboniferous, 73, 92, 115, 118;
• Lower, 92;
• Upper, 115
• Carnivora, 271
• Catarrhine monkeys, 287
• Catastrophes, 72, 182;
• cosmic, 182
• Catastophism, 67, 68, 98, 312;
• new, 98
• Caterpillar, 260, 264
• Cats, 284
• Causation, active and efficient, 171, 172
• Cave rat, 307
• Caves, 335, 336;
• of France and Spain, 335, 336;
• of Spain, 336
• Cell-division, 59, 137, 138, 139, 155, 162, 163
• Cell, 136, 137, 138, 141, 142, 155, 165, 168, 202, 301;
• definition of, 137;
• a multimolecule, 165;
• cannot originate through exclusive agency of physicochemical energies, 142;
• fundamental unit of organization, 136;
• germ, 156;
• simplest of organic units capable of independent existence, 138;
• simplest of organisms, 147;
• somatic, 156;
• submicroscopical components of, 141;
• simplest form of organic life, 142;
• vital, 142;
• sperm, 137
• Cell Theory, 136
• Cellular continuity, 137, 141;
• Fifth article of, 141;
• Law of, 141
• Centaur, constellation of, 184
• Centers, sensory and motor, 251
• Central neurones, 213, 222;
• purpose of, 222
• Centrioles, 140
• Cephalic index, 329
• Ceratites, 86
• Ceratodus, 119
• Cerebral cortex, 206, 213, 221, 222
• Cerebral neurones, 222;
• an extended receptor not proportioned to dematerialized abstract objects, 222
• Cerebrospinal system, 213
• Certainty, 124, 125;
• based on objective necessity, 124;
• scientific, 125
• Ceylon, 315
• Chain-reflex, 250, 252
• Chaldea, 337, 340
• Chalk, 79, 86
• Chance, 11, 151-154;
• impotent to produce effect so complicatedly telic as an organism, 151;
• its efficacy and impotence, 151-154
• Change, adaptive, 53 note;
• germinal, 42, 43, 68, 307;
• kinds of, 42;
• somatic, 68;
• specific, 7, 23, 68, 88, 89, 307;
• varietal, 7, 68, 88
• Characters (somatic or external), 5, 6, 17, 18, 41, 62, 63, 87, 88, 121, 122, 278, 306, 334;
• definition of, 41;
• duplication and suppression of, 306;
• embryonic not derived from adult, 278;
• homologous and adaptational, 62, 63, 121
• —distinction has no experimental basis, 62;
• “inherited” and “acquired,”41
• Chapelle-aux-Saintes, 288, 331;
• Cave of, remains, 331;
• remains, 228
• Chela, 61, 261;
• of lobster and African scorpion, 61
• Chemical analysis, 143, 144, 216;
• destroys life, 143, 144
• Chemical synthesis of living matter possible, 142, 144
• Chemist, 151;
• guiding intelligence of need in synthesis of organic compounds, 151;
• necessity of regulation, 151
• Chemistry, 142, 350;
• physical, 142
• Chemotaxis, 264
• Chick, 255
• Chimaeroids, 119
• Chimpanzee, 33, 270, 314, 323
• Chin, 319, 320, 328;
• may be accentuated by a mutation, 320;
• prominence in Spy No.1, 328;
• recessive, 320;
• recessiveness of the, 319;
• recessiveness and protuberance of, 320;
• recessiveness, an acquired adaptation, 320;
• receding, acquired, 328
• China, 110, 337
• Chinless mandible, not sloping backward, 332
• Chlorophyll, 62, 145, 147, 148, 149, 151, 154;
• chromogen group of, 148;
• chromogen complex, 148;
• colloidal solution of, 145;
• not a “sensitizer” like Eosin, 147, 148;
• regenerated from H_{2}O and CO_{2}, 147, 148;
• “sensitizer,”145
• Chondriosomes, 140
• Christianity, 359
• Chromatin, 138, 139
• Chromiole, 138
• Chromosomes, 17, 21, 27, 44, 45, 139, 141, 157, 158, 159;
• diploid number normal, 159;
• diploid number of, 157, 158, 159;
• duplication of, 17, 21, 44, 45;
• haploid number of, 157, 158, 159;
• homologous,
• 17, 21;
• random assortment of, 27
• Chronology, 98;
• lithic, 98;
• principles of, 98
• Chronometer, palæontological, 135
• Chrysothrix, 274
• Cidaris, 119
• Ciliate, 163
• Circumstances, environmental, 250-252
• Civilization, old, destruction of, 336
• Classes, 37
• Classification, taxonomic, not historical, 112
• Clays, Pleistocene, 289
• Cleavage, 154, 159
• Cloaca, 281
• Coccyx, alleged rudiment of former tail, 297;
• serves purpose, 298
• Cockroaches, 115
• Coelenterates, 78, 118
• Coexistence of impressions, not a companion of them, 208
• Cognitive intellect, 220, 221
• Colloid systems, aggregates, not units, 168
• Colloidal, 141, 170;
• substances, 141;
• systems not analogous to organisms, 170
• Colloids, 166-169;
• hydrophilic, 168, 169
• Columns, continental and submarine, 114
• Commanchian period, 72
• Commensal, 46
• Commensalism, 52
• Common stock, 39
• Comparative anatomy, 279, 304
• Complexity, “Law” of, 166, 167
• Components, 138, 139, 141, 142, 168;
• cytoplasmic and nuclear, 138, 139;
• of cell, 141
• —self-perpetuating, 168;
• of protoplasmic system, 141
• Compounds, organic, 142
• Concepts, 219, 220, 221, 247;
• abstract and general, 220, 247;
• rational, 247
• Conceptual thought, 219, 222, 223;
• concerned with the reality of essence, 219;
• excludes materiality
• from its specific agent and receptive subject, 222;
• not communicated to organism, 223;
• subject in soul alone, 223
• Conduction path, 265
• Condyles, occipital, 272
• Conformity, 105, 107, 110;
• “deceptive,”105, 110;
• normal significance of, 105;
• “upside-down,”107
• Conjugation, 157, 161
• Consciousness, 198, 203, 204, 205, 206, 208, 211, 235, 238, 240, 248, 262;
• and unconsciousness, 198;
• attests existence superficially variable but radically unchangeable subject of mental life, 206;
• attests persistence of our personal identity, 211;
• dependence of all science upon, 204;
• etymology of, 205, 206;
• its testimony to the reality of the ego, 205;
• organic and spiritual, 199;
• phenomenal, 198;
• sentient, 235, 238, 240, 248;
• testimony of, 208
• Constructions, complex and systematic, not producible by accident, 53, 154
• Consolation, 358, 361;
• destroyed, 361;
• eliminated, 358
• Contamination of media, 135
• Contiguity, 241, 242;
• association of, 241;
• law of, 241, 242
• Continents, 113, 114;
• permanence of, 114
• Continuity, 350;
• destructive as metaphysics, 350;
• leads to materialistic monism, 350;
• principles of, 350;
• nuclear, 137
• Control, 236, 251-253;
• intelligent, 253;
• psychic, 251;
• rational and moral, 236;
• sensory, 251-253
• Consequences—socialism, anarchy, despair, 360
• Convergence, 10, 36, 58, 59, 61, 63, 77, 78, 79, 80, 277, 283, 284, 287;
• kinds of 77
• Corpuscular, 174
• Correlation, 90, 91, 93, 99, 101, 111;
• Cuvier’s Law of, 90, 91;
• stratigraphic, 93, 96, 99, 101, 111
• Cortical, 294, 315;
• area, 274;
• surface, 315
• Cosmic scale, 350;
• Cosmogony, 181, 185
• Cosmopolitan species, 73
• Cosmozoa, 182
• Cranial box, 272
• Cranial capacity, 274, 315, 317, 322, 325, 332, 341;
• absolute, 332;
• human, 341;
• large, 341;
• of man and ape compared, 274;
• relative, 317, 332
• Cranial vault, more spacious in Spy No.2, 327
• Cranium, 118, 271, 321, 325, 328, 329, 331, 333, 337, 341;
• dolichocephalic, 325, 331;
• flat on top, broad in back, 341;
• modern, 333;
• human, 328;
• of ape, 271;
• of man, 271;
• not subsequent to barbarism, 337;
• Spy, 331
• Creation, 67, 72, 186, 187;
• defined, 187;
• new, 67, 72;
• simultaneous or recessive, 72
• Creationism, 55
• Creator, 72, 249, 298, 350
• Credulous persons misled, 353
• Cretaceous, 100, 104, 108, 109, 111, 118;
• shales, 109
• Crete, 337
• Cretinism, 294
• Cries, 246;
• emotional, 246;
• instinctive, 246
• Crinoids, 119
• Crossing, 4, 5, 19-21, 25-28, 88;
• interspecific, 19-21, 26, 27;
• intervarietal, 19, 20, 27, 28;
• does not produce “new species,”25-28
• Crossover, 17, 26, 42
• Crust, terrestrial, 113
• Crustaceans, 117
• Cryptorhetic system, 292-294
• Crystalloids, 144
• Crystals, 153
• Crystal units, 144, 165
• Ctenomys, 305
• Cultures, 135, 309, 317;
• sterilized and aërated, 135
• Curved femur, acquired adaptation, 328
• Cycads, 118
• Cycas, 118
• Cysts, 134
• Cytodes, 138, 179, 207
• Cytologist, 136, 141
• Cytology, 137
• Cytoplasm, 137-139, 141;
• of eggs differentiated, 141
• Cytoplasmic components self-perpetuating, 139
• Cytosome, 140
• Darwinism, 1, 5, 6, 16, 24, 29, 30, 32, 78, 79, 85, 263, 265, 285, 291, 325;
• contradicted by history, 337;
• obsolete theory, 29, 30, 349
• Datura stramonium, 21, 22, 23
• Death, 156
• Deceptive conformities, 98
• Deep sea bottoms, 113
• Degeneracy, 15, 15 note, 18, 336
• Degradation of energy, 162, 163, 180;
• implies beginning of life, 180;
• law of, 162, 163
• Delitzch, 118
• Dependence, 217, 218, 221, 231;
• direct, of psycho-organic functions on organism, 231;
• incompatible with spirituality, 218;
• intrinsic on matter, 218;
• objective, not subjective, 221
• Descent, 67, 80, 87, 88, 267, 269, 274, 277, 284, 305, 308, 310, 312, 315, 317, 345;
• collateral, 269, 308, 312, 317
• —of man, 308, 317
• —theory of, 269, 312;
• common, 269, 315
• —reference of, 269;
• direct, Darwin’s theory of, 274;
• from ape, theory of, 274;
• human, 317, 345
• —from pithecoid primates, not a historical fact, 345
• —theory of, 269;
• lineal, 269, 305, 308, 309, 317
• —a chain of creatures, 305
• —from ape, theory of, 269
• —upheld by Darwin, 269;
• of man, 308, 310;
• theory of, 80, 277
• Deterioration of organism does not always involve deterioration of superorganic powers, 230
• Devonian, 62, 99, 103, 106;
• Middle, 106
• De-Vriesianism, 23, 24, 29, 263, 265, 266, 349
• Diester, phytyl-methyl, 147
• Differences, 9, 12, 13, 16, 28, 37, 46, 81, 82, 84, 86, 89, 121, 171, 236, 237, 271, 272, 273, 320, 331, 333, 334, 359;
• anatomical, between
• Homo primigenius and Homo sapiens, 331, 334
• —between man and ape, 271-273;
• between living and lifeless, 171;
• fluctuational, 121;
• generic, 37, 46, 82, 84, 86;
• individual, 16
• —alleged summation of, 9, 20, 29;
• major, 9, 37, 46, 320
• —relative and absolute, 37;
• minor, 9, 37, 46, 320;
• mutational, 121, 334;
• ordinal, 46;
• psychological, between man and brute, 236, 237, 359, 360
• —amount to a distinction of kind, 236, 237, 359, 360;
• specific, 12, 13, 28, 37, 46, 81, 84, 86, 333, 334;
• varietal, 46
• Differential threshold, law of, 227
• Differentiation, 284
• Diffusion of venom, 264, 265
• Digestion, stimulates lymphatic glands, 301
• Dileptus gigas, 138, 174
• Diluvium, European, 345
• Dinoflagellata, 118
• Dinosaurs, 100, 271
• Diphasic, 134
• Diploid forms, 44, 45, 47
• Dipnoan, 119
• Diptera, 48, 49
• Discernment, 240
• Discina, 118
• Disconformity, non-evident, 105
• Discrimination, 208
• Discursive analysis, 243, 244
• Disease germs, 141, 169, 170, 216;
• invisible, identified by the pathological effects, 216;
• submicroscopic, 141, 169, 170
• Disintegration, atomic, 163
• Dispersing medium, 168
• Dissociation, 235, 242
• Distributed nucleus, 138
• Distribution, 92, 99, 100, 112, 113, 115;
• chronological, 92;
• geographical, hard to distinguish from chronological, 99, 100;
• of plants and animals, 115;
• spatial, anomalies of, 112, 113
• Disuse, 286, 288, 290, 305, 306;
• effects, alleged of, 288
• Divergence, 9, 36, 39, 57
• Divine action, vivifying matter, not a miracle, 187, 188
• Dog, 248, 255, 287
• Dogmatism, evolutionary, 360
• Dolphins, 80
• Domination of intellect and will over organic powers, 235
• Doubt, “scientific,”198
• Dragonflies, 115
• Drone, 158
• Drosophila, 17, 18, 19, 27, 85, 86;
• melanogaster, 85, 86
• —gradations in eye-color, wing-length and pigmentation of, 85, 86
• Dryopithecus, 270, 310, 311, 323, 345;
• dentition of, 311, rhenanus, teeth, human-like, 323
• Dualism, 174, 198, 199, 231, 233, 234, 351;
• conscious and unconscious, of Descartes, 198;
• hylomorphic, 174, 198, 231;
• of emergence and resistance, 233, 234 note;
• of potency and act, 199;
• psychic and physical, of Descartes, 198;
• psychophysical, 198, 231
• Duckbill, 287
• Duplication, 44, 45, 305;
• chromosomal, 44, 45;
• of organs, 305
• Dynamic, 206
• Ear, 302, 304;
• helix of, 304
• Earth columns, 113
• Earthworm, 250, 280
• East Indies, 118
• Echinodermata, 119, 121, 122
• Education, 245, 256, 360;
• responsible, 360
• Educator, modern, 360
• Effect, 176, 177
• Eggs, 134, 156, 158, 159, 160, 255, 259, 278, 283;
• of sea urchin, 159, 160;
• unfertilized, 158;
• reduced, 158;
• unreduced, 158
• Ego, 209, 210, 224;
• the, 209, 210;
• the thinking, 224
• Egoism, 256
• Egypt, 115, 337, 340
• Electrolytes, 168
• Electronic theory, 56
• Electrons, 163, 174
• Elements, radioactive, 180
• Elephants, 111, 115, 315;
• brain of, 315;
• Siberian, sudden extinction of, 111
• Elephas:
• antiquus, 317;
• primigenius, 326
• Embryologists, 136
• Embryology, 141, 275, 276, 308;
• comparative, 276;
• experimental, 141
• Embryonic additions, 276
• Embryos, 276, 278, 279, 280, 281;
• alleged fish-like stage of, 279, 280;
• human, 278, 280, 283;
• mammalian, 281, 283;
• vertebrate, 281
• Emergents, 233 note, 234 note
• Energy-content, 174
• Emotion, 214, 231, 246, 247;
• functions of sensual appetite, 247;
• a psycho-organic function, 214;
• organic function, 231
• Emperor moth, 267
• Emulsifier, 169
• Emulsion, 139, 168
• Encasement, 3, 4
• Encystment, 162
• End, 254, 259
• Endocrine glands, 292-295, 298;
• not functionless, 295
• Endomixis, 161, 162, 163, 178
• Endoskeletal, 36
• Energy, 172, 174;
• content, 174;
• defined, 172;
• kinetic and potential, 172
• Energy-environment, 168
• Enlightenment, 244, 245
• Entelechy, 172-175, 199, 200, 202, 210;
• definition of, 200;
• Aristotelian sense perverted by Driesch, 172;
• a constant in living units, a variant in inorganic units, 175, 200, 202, 210;
• common to inorganic units and living organisms, 173, 174;
• consubstantial with matter, 202;
• entitive, not dynamic, 172, 201;
• equivalent to static affinity or structural valence, 173;
• inorganic, 174;
• not an agent but a specifying type, 201
• Entitive, 206
• Environment, 6-9, 12-15, 42, 46, 152, 153, 174, 180-182, 261, 307;
• cosmic, of life, 180, 181;
• internal, 14, 15;
• not a mechanism for molding organisms, 152, 153
• Environmental conditions, 15, 16, 68, 123, 284
• Environmental stimulus, 255
• Enzymes, 143
• Eoanthropus, 320, 322, 323, 342;
• a combination of simian and human remains, 342;
• Dawsoni, 320-323, 342;
• jaw older than cranium, 322
• Eocene, 115, 309, 313, 317;
• Lower, 313;
• Middle, 115
• Eoliths, 154, 321
• Eosin, a sensitizer, 147
• Epeira, 248, 249
• Epicyclic subterfuges, 110
• Epigenesis, 3, 4
• Epiphysis, 292
• Equus, 5, 95, 113;
• American and European, 113;
• asinus, 5;
• caballus, 5
• Erosion, 105, 109
• Eskimo, 330, 338;
• language more complex than English, 338
• Euphemisms, 351
• Europe, 112, 113, 335
• Eurypterids, 117
• Events, 208
• Evolution (active and passive) of life from inorganic matter, 132, 133
• Evolution (alleged) of human soul, 194, 195, 268, 352
• Evolution (alleged) of human body, 268, 309, 343
• Evolution, xi-xiv, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 17, 19, 20, 21, 28, 29, 31, 32, 34, 43, 44, 45, 63, 66, 70, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 83, 86, 90, 92, 97, 105, 116, 117, 123, 124, 125, 131, 193, 194, 267, 268, 291, 297, 304, 309, 325, 335, 339, 349-361;
• aspects, moral and social, of, 353-361;
• causes of, 2, 6;
• evidence for, experimental, 3, 7, 8, 17, 28
• —inferential or circumstantial, 3, 8, 125
• —genetical, 8, 18, 28, 29
• —zoological, 8, 34, 66, 76
• —palæontological, 3, 8, 66, 74-76, 78, 79, 80, 83, 92, 97, 105, 126;
• fact of, 2, 86, 124, 126;
• heliocentric theory not on a par with, xii, xiii, law of, 1, 123;
• monistic basis of, 349-353;
• necessary as hypothesis, not as
• dogma, xi;
• senses of, 2, 74, 75, 131;
• spirit not a product of, 193, 194, 268;
• systems of, 1, 29, 31, 349;
• Augustinian, 32, 74, 75;
• Batesonian, 18-21, 43, 44, 79;
• monophyletic, 69, 70, 116, 117;
• polyphyletic, 70;
• progressive, 44, 45, 116
• Evolutionary thought, crisis in, 3, 29
• Evolutionists, 279
• Exoskeletal, 36
• Expediency, 291
• Experience, 238, 241, 253, 256;
• learning by, 241;
• sensory, 238, 253
• Experimentation, 197
• Eye, 60, 205, 217, 283, 298;
• a corporal element intrinsic to the visual sense, 217;
• an example of convergence, 60;
• constituent part of agent and subject of vision, 217;
• human, defective, 298;
• not replaced by telescope, 205;
• vertebrate type of, 283
• Factorial, complex, 45
• Factors, germinal (genetic, hereditary), 5, 6, 15, 17, 18, 19, 41, 42, 44, 45, 68, 122, 151, 152, 174, 207, 291
• —diagnosis of, 122
• —fractionation of, 19
• —positive and inhibitive, 19;
• environmental, 6, 41, 42, 68, 151, 152, 174, 207, 291
• —blind, 151, 152
• —of disuse and selection, 207
• Facts, 205;
• former cannot be formulated except with reference to ego, 205;
• in terms denoting or connoting ego, 205;
• intramental and extramental, 205
• “Falsifications” of ancestral records, 276
• Families, 37, 58;
• chemical, 58
• Family-tree, evolutionary, 58
• Fats, 145
• Faulting, 107, 108;
• horizontal and vertical, 108;
• “Low angle,”107, 108;
• normal, 108
• Fayûm, the, 115
• Feldhofer Grotte, 323, 324, 326
• Felis leo fossilis, 319
• Femur, 313, 316, 317, 324, 327, 330, 341;
• not curved as in Neanderthal type, 341;
• shows curvature, 327, 330
• Ferns, 118
• Fertilization, 42, 157, 159, 160
• Filiation, 75
• Finality, immanent law of, 174
• First causes, 52, 71, 249
• Fishes, 61, 270, 276, 279, 283, 296;
• adult, 279, 283;
• embryo of, 279
• Fish-kidney, 302
• Fission, binary, 156, 161;
• unequal, 156;
• multiple, 156
• Fixism, 4, 32, 52, 69, 70, 72, 75, 119, 124, 268;
• unable to furnish “natural” explanation of homology, 52;
• uniformitarian, 69
• Flat worms, 278
• Flies, 134
• Fluctuants, 87
• Fluctuations, 10, 16, 29, 302, 333;
• cause of, 10, 16;
• instance of, 16;
• non-inheritable, 10, 16
• Fœtal life, special conditions of, 299
• Fœtus, 301
• Fonte de Gaume, 339
• Foot-and-mouth disease, germ of, 183 note
• Foramnifera, 118
• Force, 172, 176;
• defined, 172;
• no special vital, 176
• Forehead, 328, 330, 341;
• higher, 328;
• low, 341;
• retreating, 330
• Formaldehyde, 145-148;
• not first step in origin of life nor in photosynthesis, 145-147
• Formaldehyde-hypothesis, 145-148
• Formaldoxime, 148
• Formations, fossiliferous, 105
• Formations, geological, 75, 84, 93, 95, 99, 100, 103, 105, 108, 118, 119, 126;
• time-value of, 84
• Formed bodies of cell, self-perpetuating, 168
• Formose, 145
• Forms, 246, 275, 276, 312;
• fossil, sequence of, 276
• —intermediate, 312;
• grammatical, 246;
• intermediate, none between man and apes, 275
• Fortuitous result, 249
• Fossil bones, 319
• Fossil facts, 311
• Fossiliferous stratification, universality of, 102
• Fossil remains, human, 213
• Fossils, 3, 81, 87, 88, 94, 95, 96, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 107, 110, 111, 112, 118, 309, 317, 334, 335;
• dated by theory of descent, 334;
• evade experimental breeding tests, 87, 88, 334;
• no invariable sequence of, 99, 102;
• reconstructed, 88;
• still “medals of Creation,”94;
• time-value problematic, 98, 100, 101, 107, 110, 111, 112, 335
• Foxhall Man, 309, 341, 342;
• alleged to be Tertiary, 309, 341, 342;
• flint implements prove intelligence of, 342;
• no fossils of, 342
• Freedom, human, 232;
• of will, 232
• Free will, a myth, 360, 361
• Frescoes, 339, 340;
• polychrome, 340;
• primeval, 339, 340
• Frog, 64, 281;
• tadpole, 281
• Fruit-flies, eyeless, 306;
• vestigial, 306;
• wingless, 306
• Functions, 215, 216, 241, 276;
• extrinsically dependent on organism, 215, 216;
• sensitivo-nervous, 241;
• superorganic, 215
• Fundulus, 62
• Future life, 354, 361;
• a myth, 361;
• of retribution, 354
• Gametes, 13, 14, 25, 156, 157, 158, 159;
• production of, 25;
• specialization of, for kinetic and trophic functions, 157, 158
• Ganoids, 119, 120
• Gar pike, 119
• Gastrula, 159
• Gelation, 168
• Gemmation, 156
• Geneology, 95, 113, 348;
• hypothetical, 113;
• of horse, 95;
• of man, 348
• Geneological tree of man, 348
• Genera, 3, 4, 37, 78, 80, 81, 86, 92, 119, 312, 313;
• fossil, 3, 4, 78, 80, 81, 86, 312, 313
• Generalization, power of, 261
• Generation, univocal and equivocal, 68, 69
• Genes, 17, 18, 19, 25, 27, 42, 43, 44, 45, 79, 141, 162;
• inhibitive, 18, 19, 42, 79, 162
• Genetic cellular continuity, law of, no exception to, 163, 164
• Genetic continuity, 142, 160, 165, 311;
• fivefold law of, 142;
• law of, 136, 160
• —may not prevail in submicroscopic world, 165
• Geneticists, 89, 334
• Genetics, 2, 3, 24, 36, 46 note, 56, 82, 88, 89, 121, 126, 141, 302, 305, 334
• Genital distrophy, 294
• Genotype, 5, 41, 43, 123
• Geodesists, 114
• Geological column, 106, 117, 125, 126
• Geological record, 72, 80-84, 92, 106, 111, 120, 125, 126, 127, 297;
• damaged, 92;
• enigmatic, 126, 127;
• incomplete, 72, 80, 106;
• incompleteness assumed to explain absence of intermediates, 83;
• time-value presupposes its completeness, 82, 83, 111
• Geologists, 100, 102, 113, 114, 117, 125, 181
• Geology, xiv, 98, 107, 111, 117;
• can only prove local order of succession, 111
• Germ, 13, 155, 156, 182;
• multicellular and unicellular, 155, 156
• Germ cells, 13, 14, 16, 156, 157, 163
• Germ plasm, 14, 25, 26, 41, 42, 45, 265, 303
• Germ tract, 14
• Germinal constitution, 87, 123
• Gerrymandering, geological, 116
• Giantism, 44, 294
• Gibbon, 271, 274, 310, 314, 316
• Gibraltar skull, 322
• Gill arches and clefts, 278, 279
• Gills, 70, 279;
• permanent, 279
• Glacial, 104 note, 289, 320, 327, 329, 330, 331, 332, 334;
• deposits, 104 note;
• epoch, 320, 332, 334
• —middle of, 332
• —close of, 332;
• period, 289, 327, 329, 330, 331
• —fourth or last, 327, 329
• —close of, 331
• Glaciation, 290
• Glacier, continental, 287, 289
• Glacier National Park, 108
• Glaciologists, 289
• Glands, 296, 304;
• muciparous, 296;
• supernumerary mammary, 304
• Glaurus overthrust, 107
• Globigerina, 118
• Glucose, 145
• Gluteal region, 273
• Glyceraldehyde, 145
• God, 180, 351;
• admitted as hypothetical, 351;
• Author of Life, 180;
• impossible to prove existence of, 351
• Golgi bodies, 140
• Gonads, interstitial cells of, 292
• Gondwana Land, 114, 115
• Gorilla, 51, 270, 271, 272, 273, 314;
• face of, 271;
• skull of, 271
• Gradation, 82, 87, 315;
• morphological, 82;
• of forms, 87;
• series, 315;
• temporal succession, 82
• Gradual approximation, dogma of, 110
• Grammar, “scientific” revision of, 205
• Graptolites, 78, 100
• Great Peacock Moth, 260
• Grey Worm, 246
• Grignard reaction, 209
• Groups, 335
• Gryphaea, 79
• Guest, 49, 53
• Habit, 8, 265, 266, 267, 291, 328, 333, 334;
• automatisms of, alleged to be source of instinct, 267;
• body-modifying, 333
• —of squatting, 328;
• modern, 334
• Habitat, 99, 112, 182
• Hæmoglobin, 148
• Hallucinations, 235
• Hallux, human, 50;
• simian, 50
• Halogens, 58
• Haptophores, 57
• Heidelberg Man, 318, 319, 320;
• jaw anomalous, 319, 320
• Hen, 259, 260
• Heredity, 5, 39, 54, 88;
• alleged cause of homology, 39;
• biparental, 5
• Heterogametes, 158
• Hererogamy, 158
• Hererozygous, 25, 26, 27
• Histogenesis, 59
• History, 337, 338, 339;
• contradicts evolutionary assumption, 337, 338;
• dawn of, 337;
• proves primitive man to have been civilized, not barbaric, 339
• Homœomorphy, heterogenetic, 79
• Homology, 8, 34, 35, 36, 39, 40, 46, 47, 48, 51, 54, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 65, 77, 268, 276, 277, 278, 279, 284, 287, 292, 298, 308;
• definition of, 35;
• anatomical, 276, 279, 284, 308;
• application to man, 34, 51, 268;
• disguised by external diversity, 48;
• embryological, 48, 278, 279, 284, 308;
• evolutionary argument from, 34, 47 note, 48, 54, 63, 64, 65, 268, 292;
• genetic explanation of, 39, 40, 47
• Homologous organs, 35, 61
• Homo neanderthalensis, 333
• Homo primigenius, 323, 330, 333, 334, 341, 342;
• a variety, not a distinct species, 342;
• same as Homo Mousteriensis, 330;
• type, fluctional nature of, 341
• Homo sapiens, 325, 330, 332, 333, 340, 342, 345;
• only human species, 342
• Homozygous, 25, 27
• Horizon, 93, 94, 125, 310, 335;
• level, 335;
• stratigraphical, 93, 94;
• stratigraphic, 125, 310, 335
• Hormones 14, 292, 294, 295
• Horse, 5, 78, 81, 82, 304, 332
• Host, 49, 53
• Hottentots, 325
• Human, 224, 227, 256, 335, 341, 342, 345, 352;
• fossils all belong to the species, Homo sapiens, 345;
• mind
• —alleged to be of animal extraction, 352
• —reflects, 224
• —spiritual, 227;
• reason, 256;
• remains more ancient than formations in which they are found, 335
• Human body, 267, 304, 345;
• evolution of, 267;
• ignorance and uncertainty regarding origin, 345;
• not a mosaic of heterogenetic organs, 304;
• origin of, 345
• Humanization of brute, subjective, 238
• Humanizers of brute, Darwinian, 263
• Human language attests reality of ego, 205
• Human nature, 360;
• Darwinian conception of, 360
• —evils of popularizing it, 360
• Human Soul, 193, 194, 202, 203, 210, 213, 214, 215, 216, 225, 231, 232, 233, 267, 268;
• could only originate by creation, 267;
• creation of, 193, 267;
• discarnate, 202, 214
• —not a complete person or nature, 202;
• exists for its own sake, 215;
• immortal, 193;
• intrinsically independent of organism, 202, 215, 225;
• not an emergent of matter, 194
• —alone active in superorganic functions, 202, 214, 216;
• same as mind, 203;
• simplicity of, 210
• —not to be confounded with spirituality of, 210;
• spirituality of, 193, 203, 214, 215, 216, 231, 232, 233, 233 note, 268
• —proofs of, 214, 215, 216, 231
• —from rational thought and volition, 231, 232, 233, 233 note;
• substantiality of, 210;
• underivable from matter, 268
• Hunter, life of, 328, 330
• Hyaloplasm, 139, 141
• Hybridism, constant, 25
• Hybridization, 16, 26, 88;
• interspecific and intervarietal, 26
• Hybrids, 4, 5, 17, 25, 26, 27, 28, 84, 85, 87;
• interspecific, sterile, 4, 5, 26, 27;
• invarietal, 19, 20, 27, 28;
• as intermediates, 84, 85
• Hydrang, 44
• Hydrogen, 175;
• liquid, 184 note
• Hydroglissia, 248
• Hydrosol, 169
• Hydrosphere, 113, 181
• Hydrotheca, 78
• Hydroxylamine, 148
• Hyrozoa erroneously classified, 122
• Hylobatic, 314, 316, 317, 318;
• type, 318
• Hylomorphic dualism, 198
• Hylomorphic vitalism, does not discourage experimental analysis of life, 201
• Hylomorphism, 174
• Hypogamete, 158
• Hypertrophy, 289, 290, 294;
• due to use, 289
• Hypophysis, 292, 293, 294, 295;
• not functionless, 294
• Ice Age, 98
• Ichthyosaurs, 80
• Igneous masses, not basal, 125
• Illusions, 235
• Imageless thought, sense of term, 219
• Imagery, 214, 215, 218, 219, 220, 221, 228, 229, 241, 243;
• a function of the living cerebral cortex, 221;
• association of, 241;
• cerebral, 218;
• concrete, 220, 221;
• different in different persons, 219;
• distributed by abnormal state of cortex, 221;
• motor, 214;
• neurographic, 243;
• represents only superficial and exterior properties, 219;
• rigid, correlated with metabolic process at work in cerebral cortex, 228, 229;
• rigidly proportioned underlying neurogram, 215;
• sensible, presupposed by thought and volition, 221;
• shows corresponding degrees of integrity and intensity, 229;
• sporadic and fragmentary, 229;
• tactile, 214
• Imagination, 213, 221, 222, 228, 229, 231;
• cerebral sense, 222, 228, 229;
• its normal exercise depends on physiological normality of cerebral cortex, 221;
• organic function, 231
• Imaginative activity, 229
• Immortality, considered an anodyne, 358
• Immunity, 57
• Immutibility, 50, 52
• Impenetrability, 225;
• of matter, law of, 225;
• reflection opposed to, 225
• Improvised structures, 281 note, 283
• Incubation, purposeless, 259
• Independent Assortment, Law of, 27
• Index fossils, 93, 94, 96, 97, 100, 104, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 335, 339;
• basis of stratigraphic correlation, 93, 94;
• an arbitrary and elastic criterion, 94, 95;
• final court of appeal, 93, 96, 97, 335;
• in conflict with physical and stratigraphic evidence, 100, 104-112
• India, 114
• Indian dialects, work of philosophers, 338
• Indian Ocean, 114, 115
• Individuation, 220, 224;
• concrete, 224
• Indo-Europeans, 334
• Industry, Mousterian, 326, 327, 329, 330, 331;
• Acheulean, 331;
• Aurignacian, 331
• Inertia, defined, 174
• Infusion, 193;
• not supernatural, 193;
• of spirit into matter, not a miracle, 193
• Infantilism, 294
• Inference, 221, 240;
• mediate, 221
• Infundibulum, 293
• Infusoria, supposed abiogenetic origin of, 134
• Inheritance, 2, 8, 9, 24, 27, 38, 40, 41, 42, 45, 56, 57, 62, 63, 64, 75, 160, 294, 320;
• definition of, 41;
• biparental, 160;
• chemical theory of, 57;
• laws of, 2, 24, 27, 42;
• similifying process, 40, 45
• —not only one, 56
• —also said to diversify, 63, 64;
• variable, 75
• Inhibition, 242, 252
• Initial vivification, 133;
• act, 133;
• of matter required a formative, 133;
• rather than creative, 133
• Inquilines, 46
• Insectivora, 275
• Insects, 225, 307;
• evolutionary diminuendo of, 116;
• wingless, 307
• Instinct, 238, 240, 247, 249, 250, 251, 252, 254, 256, 257, 259, 263, 264, 265, 267, 291, 343, 361;
• defined, 255, 256;
• James’ definition of, 249;
• according to external circumstances, 250-252;
• according to physiological state of organism, 250;
• adjustment of, 250, 252;
• constructive, 251;
• effective only under normal circumstances 258;
• evolutionary origin of, 267
• —improbable, 267;
• fixity of, 258;
• improbability of, 267;
• its regulatory principal sense, 254;
• not gradually acquired, 263, 264;
• not intelligence, 254;
• only slightly undefiable, 256;
• origin of, 263;
• psychic regulation of, 249;
• requires no apprenticeship, 256;
• teleology of, 249;
• telic, 259;
• variability of, 250
• Instinctive acts, 256
• Instruction, 244, 245
• Instrumentation, 197
• Intellect, 220, 221, 224, 226-230, 339;
• active, 220, 221;
• activity of, 221;
• cognitive, 220, 221;
• conscious of its own operations, 226, 227;
• indirectly dependent on physiological condition of cortex, 221;
• its immaterial nature, 224;
• objectively dependent on organic activity of imagination, 221;
• not bound to material organ, 226;
• not debilitated by intense thinking, 227, 228;
• not incapacitated but invigorated by intense thinking, 228;
• not regulated by physiological vicissitude, 229;
• not subject to metabolic laws, 230;
• rooted in a spiritual principle, 227;
• superorganic nature of, 227
• Intellectual, 228, 229, 230;
• activity may reach highest points of concentration and intensity without involving commensurate fatigue on part of organism, 228
• Intelligence, 239-241, 243, 245, 247, 248, 249, 254, 256, 257, 259, 262, 263, 267, 329, 330, 340, 343, 350;
• definition of, 239;
• autonomous, 259;
• a generalizing and abstracting power, 257;
• “bestial,”245, 247, 257;
• conscious, 240;
• deceptive semblance of, 240, 241;
• Divine, 249;
• etymology of, 239;
• finite, 249;
• genuine, 240, 241;
• infinite, 248, 249;
• incapable of being evolved from matter, 267;
• inherent, 249, 256, 259, 267;
• of worker bees, 267;
• subjective or inherent, 248, 249;
• used to denote power of profiting by experience, 239, 240
• Intensity, 227, 230;
• does not increase in same proportion as intensity of stimulus, 227;
• may reach maximum with involving corresponding fatigue, 230;
• of thought does not follow fluctuations of neural metabolism, 230
• Interactionism, 206
• Interaction, three types of, 175
• Interglacial period, 329;
• last, 329
• Intergradation, 87
• Intergradence, 84-87;
• may indicate hybridism, 84, 85;
• no argument for common ancestry, 84-86;
• of mutants genetically independent, 85, 86
• Intergradents, 85, 86;
• hybrid, 85, 86;
• mutational, 85, 86;
• specific, 85, 86
• Interjections, negligible part of human language, 247
• Interpretation, ontogenetic, an alternative for phylogenetic, 302
• Intervals, 105;
• lost, unrepresented by deposition, erosion or disturbance, 105
• Intravitous staining, 143
• Introspection, 204, 205, 212, 225;
• does not create personality, 212;
• impossible to a material organ, 225
• Intrusions, igneous, 125
• Invertebrate, 293, 294;
• stage, 293, 294
• Involution, 160
• Iron, 148
• Irrational man unknown either to history or prehistory, 340
• Islands, 153
• Islets of Langerhans, 292
• Isobares, 172
• Isogametes, 157
• Isogamy, 157
• Isomers, 173
• Isostacy, 113, 114
• Isostatic equilibrium, 114
• Jacob’s Cavern, in Missouri, 340
• Java, 313
• Jaw, 331, 340;
• lower, 331;
• lower missing, 340
• Jimson Weed, 21, 22
• Judgment, 207, 220
• Jupiter, 184
• Jura, 103
• Jura, European, 96, 106
• Jurassic, 117
• Kena Kakoe, 346-348;
• extinct volcano, 346
• Kidney, 280-283;
• adult, 282;
• embryonic, 283;
• fish, 280, 282;
• mammalian, 280;
• permanent, 281, 284
• Kiluea, observatory at volcano of, 346
• Kingdom, animal, 249
• Kleistogamy, 159
• Knowledge, 190, 191, 221, 256;
• conceptional, 221;
• experimental, 256;
• technical, absence of, does not always disqualify, 190, 191
• Krapina, 330, 332;
• type of, 330
• Laboratory syntheses differ from those occurring in organism, 150
• La Chapelle-aux-Saints remains, 232, 330-333
• Lamarckism, 6, 7, 13, 15, 16, 24, 29, 46 note, 53, 67, 78, 79, 263, 265, 266, 291;
• recent revival of, 266
• Lamps, 340
• La Naulette remains, 326, 332;
• alleged to be distinct species, 332;
• absence of chin, 326;
• allied to Neanderthal type, 326
• Land bridges, 112
• Language, 245, 246, 247, 330, 338, 339;
• descriptive, conceptual and articulate, 246, 247;
• first step in formation of, 245;
• formation of, presupposes an artist as great as his works, 339;
• human, 246, 247;
• indicative, emotional and articulate, 247, 256;
• of animals, 245,
• 246, 247;
• of savage races point to former civilization, 330
• La Quina, industry of, 331
• Law, definition of, 166, 167
• Law of Weber, 227
• “Learning” of animals, 243
• Le Moustier, 329, 332;
• remains, 322, 326, 329, 330
• Lemuroids, 275
• Lemurs, 312
• Lepontine Alps, 109
• Lethals, balanced, 25-28
• Lias, 119
• Liberalism, 257
• Life, 133, 142, 144, 145, 154, 165, 176, 177, 181, 182, 186, 187, 188, 203;
• organic, definition of, 176, 177;
• active cause of extramundane, 181, 182;
• alleges submicroscopical units of, 165;
• Author of, 186, 187;
• conscious, 203;
• initiation of, not a creation, 186, 187
• —not a miracle, 187, 188
• —not supernatural, 187, 188;
• integrating and formative principle of, 144;
• metabolic, sentient and rational, 203;
• more than a chemical problem, 142;
• origin of, 133
• chemical hypothesis, 145
• —not a problem of translation, 182;
• spontaneous origin of, 154
• Life-cycle, 69, 112, 138, 155, 156, 160
• Lima, 118
• Limit of microscopic vision, 140
• Limulus polyphemus, 119
• Lingula, 118
• Linin, 139
• Links, 84, 86, 312, 313, 315, 323, 341, 342;
• connecting, 315, 323
• —between men and apes, 312;
• connecting, so called are (a) human, (b) simian, (c) mixed remains, 342;
• generic and ordinal, insufficient, 86;
• “missing,”341;
• specific, minimum, 86;
• transitional, 84
• —none between man and apes, 313
• Linkage groups, 17
• Lithosphere, 113, 114, 181
• Litopterna, 78
• Living beings derive their matter from inorganic world, 123
• Living matter, 143, 171;
• its uniqueness, a simple fact, 171;
• maintains its specific type, 143
• Lizards, 292
• Loess, 326, 327
• Logarithmic spiral, 248
• Locomotion, mechanism of, 270
• Logic, 198, 220, 245;
• of scepticism, 198;
• of thought, escapes our imagery, 220;
• saltatory, 245
• Loss, 352, 353;
• of artistic taste by Darwin, 352, 353
• Lucina, 118
• Lumpers, 37
• Lumping, 121
• Lychnis diurna and vespertina, 84
• Lycosa, 247, 263
• Lycosids, 247, 263-265
• Lymphatic glands, stimulated by digestive process, 301
• Lymphatic system, adjuncts of, 300
• Lymphatic vessels, 300
• Lymph nodules, 300
• Lymphocytes, 300, 301
• Lymphoid cells, follicle, 299
• Macrogamete, 157, 158
• Macrosomes, 139
• Madeira, 306
• Magalenians, 332
• Maggots, 134
• Magnesium, 146, 147, 148
• Mammal, 46, 59, 60, 72, 73, 100, 115, 116, 275, 280, 282, 283, 296, 304, 324, 342;
• age of, 342;
• early, 324;
• evolutionary “crescendo” of, 116
• Mammalian stock, 82
• Mammoth, 91, 115, 326
• Man, 192, 193, 212, 236, 271, 290, 340, 341, 343;
• bestial, 340;
• brutalization of, 236;
• destitute of instincts, 343;
• face of, 27;
• indications of his physical presence always accomplished by signs of intelligence, 340;
• left defenceless by nature, 343;
• modern, 341;
• more than a decaying organism, 212;
• never found apart from evidence of his intelligence, 343;
• physically helpless, 343;
• skull of, 271;
• unique
• in his soul, not in his body, 192, 193
• Mantids, 247
• Marattia, 118
• Mars, 184
• Marsoulas, caves of, 339
• Marsupial, 114, 296
• Mason bee, 251, 254, 260
• Mastodons, 115, 340;
• “prehistoric,” engraving of, 340
• Material, 193, 194, 207, 214;
• functions, 214;
• organism coöperates intrinsically in organic substrate, 224;
• sense of term, 193, 194;
• substance, inaccessible to senses, 207
• Materialism, 178, 199, 212, 214, 236, 352, 355, 357, 358, 361;
• a purely academic philosophy, 211;
• attempt to gloss over, 207;
• Darwinian, 236;
• evolutionary, 360, 361;
• its destructive effect on religion, ideals and morality, 361;
• parasitic, 358
• Materialistic, 207, 351-356, 357;
• philosophy ignores active rôle of mind, 207;
• view of human nature unnatural and intolerable—complete and consistent application impossible, 357;
• view make morality unthinkable—antisocial, 351-356
• Material organ cannot be effected by the supersensible, 222
• Matterhorn, 109
• Materialist, 230
• Materialists, many evolutionists are avowed, 351
• Matter, 71, 173, 174, 179, 181, 186, 194, 199, 200, 204, 210;
• a constant in inorganic units, 175;
• a source of indeterminism, 71;
• a variant in living organisms, 175;
• constant in chemical reactions, variant in metabolism, 199, 200, 210;
• does not coincide with sum total of reality, 186;
• initial vivification of, due to supermaterial agency, 179;
• inorganic, 181;
• not more real than mind, 204;
• notions of, 200;
• ponderable and imponderable, 194
• Maturity, 155
• Mauer, 318
• Mayflies, 115
• Means, 254, 259
• Measles, invisible germ of, 169
• Mechanics, 350
• Mechanism, 153, 154, 171, 179, 250;
• environmental, 153;
• teleological but simple, 153, 154
• Mechanist, 58, 200, 204, 351;
• many evolutionists are avowed, 351
• Mechanistic universe, 350
• Media, 136
• Medium, vibrant, 213
• Meganeura monyi Brogn, 115
• Meiosis, 25, 42, 157
• Melia, 261
• Melocrinidae, 92
• Membrana nictitans, 296, 297;
• not functionless, 297
• Memory, 213, 238, 242, 243;
• associative, 238;
• sensitive, 242, 243;
• sentiment, 238, 242
• Men, 318, 325, 328, 329;
• and apes, link between, 318
• —intermediate between, 318;
• fossil, 325;
• of Krapina, 325, 328, 329
• Mendelism, 3, 24, 25, 26, 28, 42, 46, note, 57, 349
• Mental protuberance, 272
• Mental states, 205
• Merosthenic, 270
• Mesonephric duct, 281, 282
• Mesonephros, 280, 281, 282, 284
• Mesozoic, 73, 104 note, 118, 119, 335;
• lowest series of, 119;
• middle system of, 119
• Metabolism, 57, 139, 210, 211, 227, 228;
• destructive and constructive, 137
• Metagenesis, 122
• Metamorphosis, 123, 283
• Metamorphism, 89, 126;
• of rocks, 126
• Metanephros, 280, 282
• Metaphysical, 351
• Metaphysics, 152, 185, 231, 349, 350, 351, 352;
• Epicurian, 152;
• monistic, 349;
• vs. physical science, 352
• Metaphytes, 136
• Metazoa, 118
• Metazoans, 136, 170, 284
• Meteorites, 182, 183
• Metista, 5, 59, 136, 156, 157, 159, 163
• Microgamete, 158
• Microns, 183
• Microörganism, 169, 183
• Microsomes, 139
• Migrations, 72, 76, 112
• Millennium, 358
• Mimicry, 246
• Mind, 195, 196, 198, 203, 204, 205, 207, 208, 209, 211, 222, 223, 249;
• active and passive, 207;
• apprehends material objects under dematerialized form, 223;
• a substance, 207;
• connotation of, 203;
• cannot utilize coöperation of material organ in abstract conceptions, 223;
• frame of, 211;
• human, 249;
• of man alleged to be of animal extraction, 195, 196;
• phenomenalistic notion of, 209;
• science of, 197;
• states of, not less real than states of matter, 204;
• noumenal, 198
• Minimum, 238, 349, 350;
• an empirical rule, not an axiom, 350;
• principle of, 238, 349, 350
• Miocene, 95, 310, 323;
• Upper, 95
• Miracle, definition of, 187
• Miraculous, 69, 351-356, 357
• Mitachondria, 140
• Mitosis, 59, 138, 139, 155
• Modification, 7, 41, 42, 45, 46, 51, 77, 80, 123, 307, 327, 334;
• adaptive, 45, 46, 51, 80;
• environmentally-induced, 123;
• heritable, 42, 45, 307;
• non-inheritable, 334;
• parallel, 77, 80;
• product of variation, 41;
• of specific magnitude, 7;
• of varietal magnitude, 7
• Moeritherium, 115
• Molars, 313, 322;
• teeth, 322
• Mole, 36, 80, 291, 305
• Mole-cricket, 36, 80
• Molecule, 57, 58, 143, 144, 162, 167, 170, 175, 202, 203;
• biophoric, 57;
• complex, 202;
• complex endothermic, 162;
• living and dead, 143;
• structure of, 58
• Molluscs, 117, 118, 119, 123, 278, 283
• Mongolian, 324, 325, 334;
• cossack, 324
• Monism, 350, 351, 352, 359;
• destructive of culture, spirituality, morality, 350;
• fail to motivate Christian morality, 358;
• makes God immanent in world, 359;
• makes will law unto itself, 359;
• materialistic, 350, 352
• Monist, 350
• Monistic view vitiates artistic taste, 352
• Monkey, 270, 275
• Monomolecules, 165;
• are not units, 165
• Monotremeta, 296
• Montana, 107 note
• Moral consequences of failure to discriminate, 360
• Morality, 354, 360;
• evolutionary conception of, 360
• Motor-verbalist, 219
• Morphogenetic forces, 58, 284;
• Laws, uniform, 284
• Morphogeny, organic, 298
• Morphology, embryonic and adult, 284
• Mountain columns, 113
• Mountains, 113, 153
• Mouse, brain of, 315
• Moustier Cave, 329
• Movements, 241, 242;
• reflex, 242;
• spontaneous, 241, 242.
• Mule, 5
• Müllerian duct, 281
• Multimolecule, 58, 144, 162, 165, 166, 168, 170, 179;
• are not units, 165;
• colloidal, 166;
• crystalloidal, 165, 166;
• not a link between molecules and cells, 179;
• structure of, 58
• Murder, as an experiment, 359
• Muscles, 298
• Mutants, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 87;
• chromosomal, 17, 21, 22, 23
• —balanced and unbalanced, 21, 22
• —balance, odd and even, 22
• —status as “new species” not established, 23;
• factorial, 17, 18, 19, 20;
• pseudo, 17, 27
• Mutation, 16, 16 note, 26, 42, 86, 88, 122, 265, 303, 305, 307, 334;
• changes of loss, 18, 43;
• chromosomal, 17, 42, 44, 45, 88;
• factorial,
• 19, 20, 42, 44, 45, 88, 305, 334
• —a varietal, not a specific change; fortuitous, 265;
• heritable, 16, 303, 334;
• pseudo, 17, 42, 88
• Mutation, 16, 20, 46;
• Theory, 16, 20
• Myxœdema, 294
• Nahun beds, 95
• Natural explanations, 69, 70
• Naturalism borrows moral standards, 358
• Natural process, 69, 74
• Natural science, 186
• Natural Selection, 9, 11, 12, 13, 29, 30, 152, 153, 305, 306, 350;
• a theory of chance, 11, 350;
• has no positive efficacy, 153;
• theory has impeded progress of science, 13
• Nature, 151, 185;
• inorganic impotent to duplicate even laboratory synthesis, not to speak of vital phenomena, 151
• —lacks means of self-vivification, 185;
• not automatic, 151
• Nautilus, 118, 283
• Neanderthal, 314, 315, 317, 325, 326, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333, 335, 337, 342;
• bone, show some racial characteristics, 329;
• cranium, 331, 332
• —capacity underestimated, 333, not ancestral to Cro-Magnon type, 335;
• not more ancient than modern type, 337;
• remains, 325, 332
• —human, 325;
• skull, cranial capacity of, 314, 325;
• type of, 330, 332
• Neanderthal Man, 314, 315, 317, 323, 326, 341, 342;
• distinctly human, 342;
• a dwarf, 314;
• No.1, 323, 326;
• divided opinion on, 324;
• No.2, skeleton, 326
• —skull missing, 326
• Neanderthal type, 326, 330, 332, 333, 334, 336;
• alleged to be distinct species, 332;
• alleged to be more ancient, 334;
• degenerate, 336;
• differences, 334;
• race, 334;
• no longer considered oldest type, 336
• Neanderthaloid, 328, 333, 341, 343;
• characteristics occur in modern skulls, 333;
• race, 343;
• skulls, modern features occur in, 333
• Nebular, hypothesis, 181
• Negroes, 334
• Neo-Darwinism, 10
• Neo-Kantian, 203, 219;
• phenomenalist, 203
• Neo-Lamarkism, 10, 12, 15
• Neolithic, 332
• Neontologists, 76
• Neotoma, 307
• Neo-vitalism, 171, 201, 202;
• postulates a unique force, an agent “sui generis,”171
• Neo-vitalists, 58, 200, 201;
• regard vital principle as force “sui generis,” a unique agent, 200, 201
• Nephridia, 280
• Neptune, 184
• Nerve plasm, 265
• Neurograms, 213, 214, 222;
• extended, 222;
• imprinted on neurons, 213, 214;
• objects capable of stimulating an extended organ, 222;
• objects of, endowed with concrete properties, 222;
• proportioned to stimuli, 222;
• physical basis of imagery, 214, 222
• Neurons, 213, 222, 350;
• sensory and central, 213;
• utility of sensory, 222
• New names for fossil duplicates of modern species, 119, 120
• New Stone Age, prehistoric, 337
• Nihilism, philosophical, 350
• Nitrogen snow, 183 note;
• reddish light of, 184 note
• Non-cosmopolitan species, 283
• Non-enents, 309
• Non-opposability of human hallux, 50
• Non-phenomenon or substance, 209
• Non-specialist, when disqualified and when not, 189-191
• Non-viable, 25
• Novelty, emergent, 350
• Nuclear components, self-perpetuating, 139
• Nuclear reorganization, 155, 160, 161, 162;
• a restorative process,
• 155, 161;
• means of rejuvenation, 161;
• none in somatogenic reproduction, 160;
• periodic, 162;
• primitive, 162
• Nuclear sap, 139
• Nucleus, 137, 138, 161;
• cellular, 138;
• daughter, 161;
• distributed, 138;
• germinal, 161;
• parent, 161
• Nucula, 118
• Nutrition, a reflexive activity, 175
• Object, 217, 223, 224;
• concurrence of, extrinsic, 217;
• indicated spiritual nature of mind, 224;
• (material) abstract, made of representation, 224;
• of abstract thought, incapable of making impressions or leaving records on material receptors, 223
• Occipital foramen, 272
• Occiput, broad, 332
• Ocean beds, elevation of, 114, 115
• Ocean bottoms, 113-115
• Ocean floor, 115
• Octopus, 64
• Œnothera, 16, 17, 27, 28;
• gigas, 17;
• Lamarkiana, 27, 28
• Œsophagus, invertebrate, 293
• Old Stone Age, 332, 337, 339, 340;
• class of, 332;
• prehistoric, 337
• Oligocene, 309, 317
• Onion-coat, 99, 102, 103, 109;
• a convenient device, 109;
• Alpine, 109;
• hypothesis of, 102, 103
• —“transcendental form of,”102;
• lithological and biological, 102;
• mineral envelopes, 102;
• theory, 99
• Ontogeny, 39, 79, 275, 285
• Oölites, 79
• Opisthonephros, 280, 282
• Opposability of simian hallux, 50
• Opposition, 218, 219, 234, 235;
• between imagery and thought, 218, 219;
• between psycho-organic and spiritual activity, 234, 235;
• entails distinction, 235
• Orang-utan, 33, 271
• Orders, 37
• Organ, 222, 226, 276, 286, 287, 288, 292, 298, 300, 303;
• embryonic, 276;
• functionless, 286, 287, 292;
• incapable of reflection, 226;
• material, cannot be effected by the supersensible, 222;
• nascent and rudimentary, 287, 288;
• distinction, arbitrary, 288;
• reduced, 286, 287;
• vestigial, 292, 300, 303;
• useless, 286
• Organelles, 139
• Organic activity, rigidly regulated by metabolism, 228
• Organic functions, 203, 213, 215;
• agent and subject of, not soul alone, 203;
• not only functions in man, 215
• Organic substances, 149, 150;
• laboratory synthesis of, 149, 150;
• not to confounded with living or organized substances, 150
• Organisms, 154, 155, 163, 201, 202, 203, 246;
• a product of the law of Complexity, 167;
• multicellular, 155;
• none subcellular, 154;
• of some species, syntonic, 246;
• participates as coefficient factor in physiological and sensory functions, 203;
• soul-informed, 203;
• unicellular, 154, 163
• Organization, 143, 150;
• elude art of chemist, 150
• Order, 209;
• ideal, phenomenalists confuse it with real order of things, 209;
• real, of things, 209
• Ordivician, 111
• Orientation of forces, centrifugal and centripetal, 179
• Origins, 71, 83, 161, 220, 221, 360;
• biparental, 161;
• common, 81
• —of man and brute, 360;
• organic, need not be unified in space but should be in time, 71;
• of concepts, 220, 221
• Orneau, river, 326;
• valley, 327
• Ornithorhynchus, 59, 287
• Ornithosaurs, 80
• Orthogenesis, 6, 7, 46 note, 53;
• cannot explain adaptation, 53
• Osmia, 252
• Outcrop, 93
• Overthrust, 98, 107, 110;
• a triumph of modern research, 107
• Ovists, 160
• Oximes, 148
• Oxychromatin, 139
• Oysters, 79
• Palæobotany, 117
• Palæolithic, 327, 328, 330, 333, 343;
• artists, 343;
• human remains, 330;
• man, 328, 333
• Palæontological argument, 66-127;
• defects in, 75, 124;
• in abstract, 66-75;
• in concrete, 75-127;
• a theoretical construction, 126
• Palæontological evidence, 3, 8, 66, 74-80, 83, 89, 97, 105, 107, 124, 311, 312;
• imperfection of, 89;
• rated as outweighing physical evidence, 97, 107
• Palæontological pedigrees, 3, 76, 78, 81, 82, 84, 126;
• definition of, 81;
• of horse, 76, 78, 81, 82, 126;
• camel, 126,
• and elephant, 126
• Palæontologists, 76, 86, 87, 88, 91, 119, 190, 310, 313, 321, 334, 344;
• incompetent to decide questions of specific origin or distinction, 87, 88, 89, 334
• Palæontology, 3, 82, 83, 88, 92, 95, 96, 114, 119, 126, 195, 311, 312, 313, 344;
• facts of, 83, 195;
• ignorant concerning origin of man, 344;
• orthodox, 95, 96, 119
• Palæotherium, 76
• Palæozoic, 73, 108, 117, 118, 124 note, 125, 335
• Palingenesis, 277, 288
• Pan-Pacific Conferences, 344, 346
• Panspermia, 182
• Parallelism, 57, 58;
• vs. divergence, 57
• Paramœcium, 138, 161, 178;
• aurelia, 138
• Parasites, 46, 53
• Parasitism, 52
• Parathyroids, 292
• Parent cell, 156
• Parthenogenesis, 158, 159, 160, 162;
• artificial, 159, 160
• —not violation of law of genetic continuity, 159, 160
• Pathology, 141
• Patient, 176, 177
• Pear-tree, 6, 88
• Pebrine, 44
• Pecking instinct of chicks, 256
• Pecten, 118
• Pedigrees, of genera, 84
• Pelopæus, 260
• Penguin, wings of, 287
• Pentacrinus, 119
• Perception, 208, 212, 253;
• an act of, 208;
• of personality, not personality, 212;
• sensory, 253
• Percepts, objective, 235;
• sensory, 219
• Periodicity, 56;
• of elements, 56;
• families of elements, 56
• Peri Psyches, Aristotle’s, 196, 197, 215
• Perissodactyla, 78
• Permian, 104, 118
• Persistence, 116, 119, 123;
• cannot be subsumed under same principles as transmutations, 123;
• its significance intensified by current theories, 123;
• of types, 119;
• of unchanged types, 116
• Persistent types, generic and specific, 123
• Personal identity, sense of, 212
• Personality, 205, 211, 212, 238;
• a unitary and uniform reality, 212;
• alternating, 211;
• based on unchanging principle, 212;
• perception of, 212
• Pessimism, 355, 357
• Petit-Puymoyen, industry of, 331
• Phæophytin, 147
• Pharyngeal arches and clefts, 278, 279
• Phase, reversal of, 168, 169
• Phenomena, 208, 209;
• phenomenalists’ substantialization of, 209
• Phenomenalism, 207, 208, 211, 212;
• a purely academic philosophy, 211;
• identifies mind with “thought stream,”212
• Phenomenalistic school, 206
• Phenomenalists, 203, 205, 206, 207;
• inconsistently admit of physical phenomena while denying subject of psychic phenomena, 206, 207
• Phenotype, 5, 19, 25, 27, 41, 43, 68, 123
• Philology, 339;
• proves primitive man to have been civilized, not barbaric, 339
• Philosophers, 220
• Philosophy, 189, 190, 195;
• in rôle of critic, 189;
• in rôle of sycophant,
• 190;
• materialistic, 195;
• relation to science, 189
• Phonetic elements, 246
• Photosynthesis, 146
• Phycocyanin, 149
• Phylogeny, 39, 80, 122, 275, 276, 284, 285, 308;
• human, 285, 308;
• palæontological, 115
• Phylum, 37, 38, 69, 116
• Physical impressions, 213
• Physical science, 352, 354
• Physicochemical action, reducible to interaction between unequally energized masses and particles, 175
• Physicochemical forces, executive factors in vital operations, 201
• Physiology, 350
• Phytol, 147
• Picotee sweet pea, 19
• Piltdown skull, 320
• Pineal eye, 292
• Pineal gland, 292, 293, 295;
• not functionless, 293
• Pioneer colonies, 110
• Pithecanthropus, distinctly simian, 342
• Pithecanthropus erectus, 309, 313-318, 342;
• cranial capacity of, 314;
• a giant ape, 315;
• existing casts inaccurate, 318
• Pituitary body, 292, 293
• Pituitrin, 294
• Placenta, 276
• Planarian, 278
• Planetesimal, hypothesis, 181
• Plantigrade, 272
• Plastids, 139, 141
• Platycrinidae, 92
• Platyrhine monkeys, 287
• Pleistocene, 78, 100, 104, 313, 319, 320, 325;
• Lower, 313, 320;
• Middle, 319
• Pleurotomaria, 118
• Plica, semilunaris, 297
• Pliocene, 78, 95, 309, 313, 317, 323;
• Upper, 309, 313, 317
• Pluteus, 159
• Polar body, second, 159
• Polariscope, 144
• Polymorphism, 122
• Polynesians, 325
• Polynuclear condition, 138
• Polyphemus, the Cyclops, 293
• Pompilids, 247, 248, 263, 264
• Pompilius, 247, 261
• Popular trust not to be abused, 345, 346
• Postauricular muscles, 304, 305
• Post-glacial time, 289
• Preadaptations, 46, 47, 52, 53, 63, 124, 279;
• adventitious appearance of, 46, 47;
• divergent, 279;
• entail modifications of specific magnitude, 47;
• evolution as “natural explanation” of, 53;
• inherited, 47
• Pre-Cambrian, 100, 116, 118, 125;
• terranes, 125
• —extension great, 125
• Preformation, 3, 160
• Prehension, 50, 271, 272
• Prehistoric, 337
• Prehuman, arboreal stage, 309, 217
• Presupposition, latent in materialistic logic, 186
• Pre-tertiary, 312
• Primates, 308
• Primitive man, 338, 342, 343;
• not irrational, 342, 343;
• not a savage, 338
• Primula, 19
• Principles, 171, 172;
• entitive and dynamic, 171, 172
• Priocnemis, flavicornis, 248
• Priority, 76;
• a “sine qua non” condition of ancestry, 76
• Process, 206, 209, 225;
• divorced from agents, 209;
• of reflection entails identity of observer and observed, 225;
• subjectless and sourceless, of phenomenalists, 206
• Prognathic face, 332
• Prognathism, 325, 330, 333, 341;
• of upper jaw accentuated, 341
• “Progress,”355, 359;
• modern, 359;
• of science, 355
• Progression, 50, 271, 272, 317;
• bipedal, 272;
• modes of, 271, 317
• Prehistory, undocumented, unreliable, 340
• Pronephric duct, 281
• Pronephros, 280, 281 note
• Prophylaxis, 356
• Propliopithecus, 309, 311
• Prosthenic, 271
• Protein, 140, 144, 145, 147, 151;
• multimolecule of, 140
• Proterotheres, 78
• Proterotheriidæ, 78
• Proterozoic, 104 note, 117
• Protista, 5, 59, 136, 138, 156, 157, 163;
• polynuclear condition not rare among, 138
• Protoplasm, 141, 143, 144, 151, 160, 161, 175, 181;
• dead, 143;
• how reinvigorated, 160, 161;
• invisible structure, 141;
• not a chemical compound but a complex system, 142, 143;
• persistent specificity of, 144;
• ultramicroscopic structure of, 143;
• visible, a picture of, 141
• Protococcus, 151;
• viridis, 151
• Protons, 103, 174
• Protophytes, 135, 136
• Protoplasmic architecture, 174
• Protozoa, 117, 118, 135, 136, 170
• Psyche, 179, 200
• Psychic, 198, 205, 230, 233;
• and physical dualism of Descartes, 198;
• functions, 205, 233
• —of organic type, 233;
• states, correlated with organic states, 230
• Psychology, 196, 197, 198, 204, 205, 208, 211, 235, 236, 361;
• alone competent to pronounce origin of man, 196;
• as science of behavior, 198;
• human, 235;
• positive, 361;
• reveals psychic activities as modification of abiding ego, 205;
• sole science that studies man on his distinctively human side, 196;
• vulgar, 236;
• without a soul, 208, 236
• Psychophysical, 198, 206, 236;
• dualism, 198;
• parallelism, 206, 236
• Psychosis, 213, 235, 255, organic, 213, 235
• —has for agent and recipient the psycho-organic composite, 213;
• psycho-organic, 255
• Physiological process not reducible to mere physicochemical reaction, 199
• Potency, 199
• Purpose, 11, 249, 255, 258, 259, 298;
• Divine, 249;
• unconscious of, 255, 259
• Purposiveness, 248, 249, 262;
• no intelligence, 262;
• objective, 248, 249;
• unconscious, 248
• Quadrumana, 296
• Qasr-el-Sagha, 115
• Quaternary, 98, 319;
• Early, 319
• Races, 334, 342
• Radiation, pressure of, 183
• Radioactive elements, 56
• Radio-activity, 118
• Radiolaria, 118
• Radiometer, 183
• Radius, shows curvature, 327
• Ragweed, 16
• Raft of Red River, 154
• Random Assortment, 27, 42;
• of chromosomes, 27
• Ratio, body-brain, 317
• Rays, 119
• Reactants, 209
• Reaction, 243, 252;
• elementary, motor, 252;
• historical basis of 243
• Reaction-systems, 26, 204
• Reason, 235, 240, 244, 245, 259, 267, 343;
• not evolved, 267;
• sole means of human preservation, 343;
• superorganic power of, 244, 245
• Reasoning, 207, 220
• Recapitulation, 48, 275, 278, 279, 285;
• embryonic, 48, 275, 278, 279
• Receptors, 57, 213, 222;
• extended, necessary to perceive material stimuli, 222
• Recessive chin, 311
• Recognition, 207
• Recombination, 27, 42;
• chromosomal, 27;
• factorial, 27
• Reconstructions, 89, 90, 92, 321;
• of fossil skulls, 321;
• psychological motivation of, 89, 90;
• scientific, 89, 90, 92
• Recuperation, autonomous, 163
• “Recurrent faunas,”110
• Reduction, 42, 157
• Reflection, 224, 225, 226, 240, 256;
• a fact, 225, 226;
• alleged impossibility of, 225;
• only possible to spiritual agent, 224;
• undeniable fact of, 225
• Reflexes, innate and conditioned, 238
• Reflexion, 225
• Reflexive orientation, 174, 176;
• of energies, no living being, 176;
• of forces in living organism, 174;
• in living being, 201
• Regression of organ, 305
• Regulation, 253;
• intelligent, 253;
• sensory, 253
• Rejuvenation, 155, 161, 163;
• three kinds of, 161
• Rejuvenescence, 160, 161, 162
• Reign of Terror, 357;
• French, 357;
• Russian, 357
• Reindeer, 332
• Re-integration of atoms, impossible, 163
• Relationships, 254;
• causal and telic, 254;
• supersensible, 254
• Religion, 354, 361;
• only sanction of morality, 361
• Remains, Javanese, 318
• Repair-work, 251, 252
• Reproduction, 5, 24, 25, 26, 56, 68, 69, 137, 141, 156, 157, 158, 159, 161;
• biparental (bisexual), 24, 158;
• cytogenic, 156, 157, 158, 159, 161;
• link between life-cycles, 156;
• nonsexual, 156—three kinds of, 156, 157;
• reducible to cell-division, 163;
• sexual, 25, 156, 157
• —autosexual, 158, 159
• —bisexual, 158
• —unisexual, 158
• somatogenic, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161
• —limited, 161
• —no rejuvenation in, 161
• Reptiles, 61, 80, 281, 282, 296, 301;
• flying, 80;
• palæozoic and modern, 296
• Resemblance, 38, 54, 58, 63, 79, 80, 284, 340, 341;
• compatible with separate ancestry, 63, 80
• —even specific, does not entail common origin, 79, 80;
• family, 54, 56;
• generic, 38, 56;
• heterogenetic, 80;
• ordinal, 56;
• phyletic, 56;
• specific, 38, 56, 79;
• to modern man, 340, 341
• Responsibility, 232, 360, 361;
• harmful consequences, 360;
• implies mastery of will over its own actions, 232;
• of evolutionary propagandists, 360, 361
• Resultants, 233 note, 234 note
• Resurrection, natural basis of, 202
• Reversion, 17, 303, 304, 305;
• to type, 305
• Rhinoceros etruscus, 319;
• merckii, 329;
• tichorhinus, 326, 329, 332
• Rhodesian Man, 340, 341;
• may be modern, 341
• Rhynchonella, 118
• Right-handedness, human, 288;
• duration of, 290
• River drift, 327
• Rocks, 66, 93, 96, 103, 104, 107, 118, 120, 181, 297, 335;
• composition and mineral contents disregarded in classification, 96;
• crystalline, 104, 181;
• fossiliferous, 104, 107, 118, 181, 279, 335;
• European classification of, 107;
• groups of, 120;
• igneous, 181;
• metamorphic, 104;
• sedimentary, 66, 93, 96, 107, 181;
• systems of, 103
• Rubidium, isotopes of, 173
• Rudiment, 293, 297, 301, 302;
• ontogenetic, 301, 302;
• phylogenetic, 301, 302
• Rudimentary, 299
• Rudimentary organs, 286, 291, 293, 298, 305;
• criticism of, 286;
• evolutionary argument from, 286;
• ontogenetic explanation of, 298;
• phylogenetic, 298
• —explanation of, 286
• Running birds, 114, 305
• S-R bonds, 204
• Salamander, 248
• Saurians, 60
• Savagery, not prior to civilization, 337
• Savages, descended from civilized ancestry not vice versa, 338
• Scandinavia, 110
• Scepticism, 198
• logic of, 198
• Scholastics, 191, 225
• Scholastic, theory of origin of concepts, 220
• Science, 188, 304, 359;
• as religion, 359;
• gives no heed to consequences, 360;
• its attitude towards philosophy, 188;
• sham, 304
• Scientists, 344, 348;
• many not satisfied with “evidence” for human evolution, 344;
• fallibility of, 348
• Scientific questions, decided by evidence, not by authority, 344
• Scotland, 107
• Sea-anemone, 261
• Sea floor, 113
• Sea-urchin, 119, 140;
• egg of, 140
• Second causes, 52, 71;
• efficacy finite, 71
• Sediment, 93, 103, 125;
• primordial, 125;
• universal layer of, 103
• Seedlings, 161
• Segregation, 25
• Selection, 11, 12, 13, 65, 152, 153, 306;
• artificial, 152
• —not on a par with natural selection, 152;
• intelligent and fortuitous, 152, 153;
• principle, 11, 12, 13, 65;
• values, 306
• Self, 205
• Self-fertilization, 159
• Self-observation, 224, 225;
• impossible for an organ, 226;
• power of, cannot reside in material organ, 224, 225;
• requires a spiritual principle, 225
• Self-regulation, 174, 176, 179
• Self-sacrifice, rendered meaningless, 356
• Semilunar fold, 296, 297
• Senescence, 26, 157, 160, 162;
• an inherent tendency of living matter, 160;
• tendency practically if not actually universal, 162
• Sensationists, 218
• Sensations, 209, 227, 242;
• intensity of, 227
• Sense, 204, 227, 228, 235, 254, 350;
• debilitated by powerful stimulus, 227;
• external, 204;
• organic nature of, 227;
• their power of reaction temporarily inhibited by process of repair, 227, 228
• Sense organs, 213, 251
• Sense-perception, 199, 203, 214, 219, 220, 227, 231, 235;
• a brain function 199;
• a psycho-organic function, 214;
• concerned with factual reality of existence, 219;
• involves a decomposition of neural tissue, 227;
• not independent of body, 227;
• organic function, 203
• Sensibility, organic, 244, 245
• Sensori-motor, 251
• Sensory functions of the nervous system, 199
• Sensual appetites, exhaustible, 232
• Sensual emotion, organic function, 203
• Sequence, 100, 107, 108;
• inverted or “wrong,”107, 108;
• no invariable order of, 100;
• of fossiliferous strata, 100;
• “wrong,”107, 107 note
• Serum, 15
• Sexual (gametic) incompatibility, 4, 5, 19, 20, 21
• Sharks, 80, 119, 296
• “Shell-craters,”347
• Shoots, 160
• Sight, 217;
• intrinsic dependence on eye, 217;
• extrinsic dependence on object, 217
• Silurian, 92, 106, 111, 118;
• Middle, 92, 106
• Simia satyrus, 32
• Simple explanations not necessarily true, 350
• Siwalik beds, 95, 310
• Skeleton, 60, 61, 331;
• human, 331
• Skulls, 328, 329, 331, 333, 340, 341;
• fossil, 33, 341;
• human, 331
• Skull cap, 271, 313, 314, 324, 328
• Sleep, would interrupt process of relaying consciousness from thought to thought, 212, 213
• Sloth, 52
• Snapdragon, 88
• Social inequalities, artificial laws for benefit of rich, 361
• Socialism, 357, 360;
• Marxian, 357;
• Scientific, 357
• Sodium, 165, 166;
• bromide, 165;
• chloride, 165, 166;
• iodide, 165
• Solemn burial, 331, 332, 343;
• most ancient instances, 332
• Solutreans, 333
• Soma, 13, 59, 303
• Somatella, 59
• Somatic cells, 13, 14, 17, 136, 156, 163
• Somites, 280
• Sophism, Comte’s like that of Zeno, 226
• Soul, 172, 179, 193, 194, 197, 198, 200, 201, 202, 203, 205, 206, 209, 210, 211, 216, 268, 311, 350, 361;
• definition of, 200;
• a “formative power” and “integrating” and unifying principle, 200, 211;
• a vital entelechy, 210;
• as revealed in biology and psychology, 205;
• consubstantial with matter, 202;
• differs in kind, not merely in degree from bestial soul, 194;
• discarded by Descartes, 197;
• discarded by scientific psychology, 359;
• formal principle of life, 203;
• functional, 203, 206, 209
• —cannot be primary principle of life, 206;
• name, not reality of, rejected, 200;
• not a complete entity, 201;
• primary ground of life, 206;
• rejected in dynamic, not in entitive sense, 200, 201;
• spiritual, not a product of evolution, 193, 216, 268
• —originates by a creative act, 193, 268;
• subject of psychology, 197;
• subsistent in man, 202;
• substantial, 203, 209;
• term alleged to be meaningless, 200
• Specialism, advantages and disadvantages of, 189
• Species, 3, 4, 5, 6, 17, 19, 26, 37, 38, 74, 75, 78, 80, 83, 84, 86, 87, 110, 111, 112, 119, 120-123, 131, 157, 256, 257, 312, 313, 320, 334, 342;
• definition of, 4;
• change of, 4, 6;
• differentiation and multiplication of, 131;
• difficulty of distinguishing, 120-123;
• elementary, 17;
• extinct and extant, 120-123, 334;
• extinct, precarious basis for time-scale, 334;
• formation as contrasted with transformation of, 74, 75, 131;
• fossil, 3, 4, 83, 92, 120, 122, 312, 313;
• intermediate, absence of, 80, 83, 84, 334;
• intersterility of, 4, 5, 26, 38;
• only one human, 342;
• persistent, 123;
• syngamy, an essential requisite of, 5
• Species-by-species method, 87
• Spectral analysis of constitution of sun, 216
• Spectroscope, 144
• Speech, bestial, 245, 246
• Sperm, 156, 158, 159, 160;
• activation by means of, 159
• Spermists, 160
• Sphex gryphus (Sm), 261
• Spiders, 257
• Spiral cleavage, 278
• Spirit, 194, 311;
• definition of, 194
• Spiritual, 206
• Spiritualism, 202, 230, 231;
• Aristotelian, 230, 231
• —admits direct dependence of lower psychic functions on organism, 230
• —admits indirect dependence of higher psychic functions upon organism, 231;
• Cartesian, 230;
• destroyed by facts of physiological psychology, 230;
• hylomorphic, 202;
• of Aristotle, 202;
• psychophysical of Descartes, 202, 203
• Spirituality, 203, 351;
• excludes co-agency of organism, 203;
• of human soul, 351
• Spiritual representations, 221
• Spleen, 301
• Splitters, 37
• Splitting, 121
• Spontaneous generation, 131, 132, 133, 136, 142, 148, 149, 167, 179, 182, 185, 186;
• defined, 131-133;
• antiquity of, 133;
• old and new exception of, 167;
• philosophical “proof” of, 185
• Spontogenesis, an outlawed hypothesis, 164
• Spores, 134, 136, 156, 181;
• bacterial, 181
• Sporulation, 156, 157
• Springopora, 118
• Spy, 329, 330, 333;
• bones, 329;
• crania, capacity underestimated, 330
• Spy remains, 319, 325, 326, 327, 329, 330, 332;
• skeletons of No.1 and No.2, 327
• Squatting, a habit of savage races, 328
• Squirrel, 260
• Starfish, 140, 154, 382;
• egg of, 140;
• symmetry of, 154
• States, 203, 208;
• conscious or psychic, 203, 208;
• mental, active and passive, 208;
• of matter, not more real, 203
• Statistics, moral, 361
• Stems, 160
• Stentor, 174
• Sterility, interspecific, 5, 21, 38
• Sterilization, 134, 135
• Stimulators, 243
• Stimulus, 227, 228
• Stizus ruficornis, 247
• Stock, 310, 311;
• hylobatic and troglodyte, 310, 311;
• pithecoid, 311
• Stone implements, 329, 331, 334, 340, 342;
• characteristic, unsafe basis for time-scale, 334
• Stratification, 102;
• scheme of, universal, 102;
• synchronous deposition of, different in mineral content, 102
• Stratigraphers, 106
• Stratigraphic, 101, 102, 107;
• continuity, 101;
• facts, 107;
• horizons, 101;
• sequence, 101
• —invariable order of, 102
• Stratigraphy, 93
• Strata, 66, 83, 87, 92-96, 102, 103,108, 109, 116, 119, 120, 125;
• classification of, 103;
• concrete sequence of, 109;
• dated by fossils and fossils by strata, 94;
• fossiliferous, 92, 96, 102, 109, 116, 119
• —classification of, 119
• —European classification of, 102;
• how characterized, 96;
• intervening, skipped, 120;
• mineral, 102;
• substitution of fossiliferous for lithological, 103;
• substitution of fossiliferous for mineral, 103;
• wrong order of, 108;
• “younger” and “older,”108, 116
• Strontium, isotopes of, 173
• Structures, 122, 284;
• constant and adaptive, 122;
• distinction influenced by personal equation, 122;
• embryonic, undifferentiated, 284;
• homologous and adaptive, 122
• Struggles for existence, 291
• Sturgeons, 119
• Sub-archæan beginnings of life impenetrable, 126
• Subject, 205, 207, 208;
• abiding, of our thoughts, feelings and desires, 205;
• active, 208;
• of thought, active, 207
• Subjective abstractions, phenomenalist objectivation of, 209
• Subjectless thought, an abstraction, 209
• Submicron, 140, 183 note
• Submicroscopic dimensions, no obstacle to manifestation of vital phenomena, 170
• Submicroscopic organisms show genetic continuity, reproductiveness and typical vital power, 169, 170
• Subspecies, 334, 342
• Substages, 96, 103
• Substance, 209
• Substantial composite of body and soul, 203
• Succession, 75, 76;
• to be distinguished from filiation, 75;
• not descent, 75, 76
• Sunlight, once richer in actinic rays, 148
• Superciliary ridges, 272
• Superorganic, 240
• Superorganic functions, 214, 227;
• have soul as their exclusive agent and recipient, 214
• Superorganic functions, soul alone active cause and receptive subject, 203
• Supernatural, 186, 187;
• defined, 187
• Supernumerary, 303, 304, 306;
• mammary glands, 304;
• organs, 303, 304
• Superposition, 93, 101, 111;
• as a criterion of comparative antiquity, 93;
• criterion of, confined to local areas, 101
• —not available
• for correlation of strata in different localities, 101;
• only safe means of distinguishing between spatial and chronological distribution, 101, 111;
• restricted to local areas, 93
• Suppression of organs, 305
• Sweden, 289
• Syllogisms, of no avail against facts, 226
• Symbiosis, 52, 124
• Symbiotes, 46, 53
• Synapsis, 17, 25
• Syngamy, 5, 25, 156, 157-161;
• essential to biparental inheritance, 160;
• means of rejuvenation, 161;
• qualification of a true species, 5
• Synthesis, chemical, spontaneous and artificial, 151, 152
• Systems, 96, 101, 141, 142, 151;
• colloidal, 142;
• complete polyphasic, 142;
• how determined, 96;
• of rocks, 96;
• of strata, 101;
• polyphasic, 141;
• protoplasmic, 141, 142;
• simple, 151
• Systematist, 46, 121
• Tactisms, 204
• Tactualist, 219
• Taenia, 248
• Taiga, 91
• Tarantula, 247, 263
• Tasmanian blacks, 325
• Tautomerism, 202
• Taxonomic questions, 334
• Taxonomist, 122
• Taxonomy, 36, 37, 38, 77, 101, 121, 122, 123, 320;
• fossil, 101, 122
• —basis of correlation, 101
• —arbitrary and unreliable, 122;
• homology, basis of, 36;
• influence of palæontology, 77;
• need of revision in, 121, 123
• Teleological, 225
• Teleology, 154, 240, 248, 249, 259, 267;
• a material expression of intelligence, 259;
• does not entail vibrant intelligence, 259;
• its combination with sentient consciousness, 240;
• of organisms, 154;
• of artefacts, 154;
• psychic implication of, 154;
• unconscious, 240
• Teleosts, 120
• Telic, 150, 249;
• phenomena of nature, 249
• Terebratulina, striata, 118, 120;
• caput serpentis, 118
• Termitomyia, 46
• Termitoxenia Heimi, 48
• Tertiary, 72, 82, 99, 100, 104, 109, 111, 112, 113, 118, 154, 270, 308, 311;
• ancestor, 312;
• Man, 154
• Tertiary envelopes of eggs, 300
• Tethelin, 294
• Tethys, 109
• Tetraploid race, 23, 45;
• origin of, not yet observed, 23
• Tetraploidy, 22, 23, 44
• Thigh, bone, 316, 317
• Third eyelid, 296, 297
• Third Interglacial Period, latter half of, 331
• Thoatherium, 78
• Thought, 218-222, 227, 229, 230, 233;
• and imagery, concomitant but incommensurable, 219;
• digs below phenomenal surface, 219;
• distinguished from imagery, 218, 219;
• intellectual, steady, lucid and continuous, 229;
• not function of material organism, 233;
• power does not always degenerate with old age, 230;
• presupposes imagery, 221;
• proceeds with complete ease after initial exertion of imagination, 229;
• rational, 222, 224, 231, 233
• —has spiritual soul for source and subject, 233
• —reflective, 224
• —spiritual, 222
• —superorganic function of, 231;
• reflective, a superorganic function, 227;
• requires substrate of sensible images, 220
• —on which it is objectively dependent, 222;
• some in all individuals, 219;
• spiritual, 222;
• untranslatable into adequate imagery, 219
• Thrust faults, 107
• Thrust planes like bedding planes, 108
• Thymus, 299, 300, 301, 302;
• an ontogenetic rudiment, 301, 302
• Thyroid glands, 292, 294, 295, 301
• Thyroxin, 294
• Time-value, 75, 82, 83, 84, 95, 96, 101;
• of geological formations, dubious, 75;
• of index fossils, 95, 96
• —affords no basis for scientific certainty, 101
• Tissue, lymphatic, 301
• Tissue cells, 13, 14, 136, 156
• Tonsils, 301
• Tools, use of, by animals, 261
• Trachelocerca, 138
• Training, 244, 245, 256
• Transformism, 3, 4, 6, 16, 24, 25, 32, 40, 43, 52, 53, 55, 56, 59, 61, 67, 69-72, 75, 80, 84, 109, 117, 123, 124, 126, 127, 131, 263, 268, 343;
• definition of, 3;
• impotent to explain origin of intelligence, 216, 233 note, 263;
• interpretation, not corollary, of fossil facts, 126;
• monophyletic, 69, 70;
• “natural” explanation of homology, 52;
• proofs for, empirical, aphoristic, and aposterioristic, 55, 56;
• rests on personal belief rather than on facts, 127;
• ultra-partisans of, 343;
• unconcerned with origin of life, 131;
• unifies origins in time, but not in space, 69
• Transformist, 38
• Transmutation, 6, 28, 35, 40, 50, 65, 69, 70, 71, 73, 123, 193
• Trial and error, 241, 243
• Triassic, 118, 119
• Trilobites, 100, 117
• Triploidy, 21, 22
• Troglodyte, 34, 50, 314,
• type, 314
• Troglodytes niger, 33, 314
• Tropisms, 204
• Tubercule of Darwin, not homologous with apex of horse’s ear, 303
• Tubers, 160
• Tubules, nephridial or excretory, 280
• Types, 54, 55, 66, 83, 84, 92, 116-120, 123, 124, 141, 328, 329, 334, 335, 336;
• Ancestral, 92, 117, 276;
• annectant, 92;
• approximation in, 66;
• common ancestral, 83;
• Crô-Magnon, 332, 334, 335;
• no evidence of its descent from Neanderthal type, 334;
• generalized, 54, 55, 81, 84;
• are abstractions, 54, 55;
• generic, 116, 117;
• persistence of, 118, 123;
• Grimaldi, 332;
• intergradent, 83;
• invertebrate, 117;
• modern, 116, 120, 334;
• Neanderthaloid, 329, 335;
• persistent, 116;
• persistence of, 119;
• phyletic, 116, 117;
• permanence of, 118;
• specific, 116, 141
• —persistence of, 118, 123;
• fossil doctrine of their invariable sequence, 104, 312
• Ultramicron, 144, 168;
• destitute of reproductive power, 168;
• may not be natural unit, 168;
• of colloidal solutions, 168
• Ultramicroscope, 140, 144;
• limit of, 140
• Ultraspiritualism of Descartes, 199, 202
• Ultra-violet rays, 148, 184
• Unchange, not explained by theory of exchange, 123
• Understanding, 235
• Ungulates, 78, 82;
• fossil, 82
• Uniformitarianism, 67, 68
• Uniformity of nature, 149, 186;
• only justification for reconstruction of the past, 149;
• principle of, 169
• Union of soul and body, according to Descartes, 198, 199
• Units, 144, 162, 163, 166, 167, 168, 170, 174-177, 199-201;
• difference between, 170;
• inorganic, 144, 163, 166, 170, 174, 175, 176, 177, 201
• —and living, 170, 175-177
• —incapable of other than transitive action, 174, 177;
• living and non-living, 199, 200;
• natural, 168;
• new, of life to be discovered, 167;
• of nature, non-living, 162, 163
• Universe, Stone Book of, 127
• Uranium, 146
• Urea, 173
• Ureter, 282
• Uroleptus mobilis, 138, 161
• Urosthenic, 270
• Ursus spelaeus, 326, 329
• Use, 291
• Utility, 291
• Valence, 165;
• atomic, 165;
• molecular (residual), 165
• Variation, 9, 18, 40, 41, 42, 45, 63, 64, 88, 303;
• agencies of, 42;
• cause of modification, 41;
• converges and diverges, 63, 64;
• fluctuational, 9, 303;
• heritable, 42;
• intra-specific, 43;
• mutational, a change of loss, 18;
• non-inheritable, 42;
• process of diversifying, 40, 45;
• trans-specific, 43, 88
• —no experimental evidence of, 45
• Varieties, 334, 342
• Vault, 329, 332
• Vegetarians, 236
• Versatility, 257, 258, 259;
• distinctive mark of intelligence, 257, 258
• Vertebræ, 279
• Vertebrate, 60
• Vertebrata, 119, 270, 271, 279-284, 292, 297, 300, 302;
• amniotic, 280-282;
• anamniotic, 280, 282
• Vestigial remnants, 299
• Viability, 4, 5, 25, 26, 43, 44
• Vibration, 209;
• pure, 209;
• without vibrant medium, 209
• Vinegar fly, 19, 85
• Violet, 25, 159
• Visceral arches and clefts, 278, 279
• Visualist, 219
• Vital activity, 201
• Vital continuity, 134, 139, 155;
• genetic, first article of, 134;
• law of, 134, 155;
• law of, 139;
• its fourth article, 139
• Vital force, no special, 201
• Vitality, 150;
• eludes art of chemist, 150
• Vital principle, 172, 200, 203;
• as defined by Neo-Vitalists, 172;
• entitive, not dynamic, 172;
• term alleged to be meaningless, 200;
• term in disfavor, 200
• Vivisection, 360
• Volcanic bombs, 346-348
• Volition, 221, 231, 233;
• not function of the material organism, 233;
• presupposes conception, 221;
• rational, has spiritual soul for source and subject, 233;
• rational, superorganic, 231
• Walrus, 296
• Wasp, predatory, 247, 263
• Weddas, cranial capacity of, 315
• Weight, 315
• Whale, 35, 46, 60, 279;
• flipper of, 35, 60, 279
• White Leghorns, 19
• Wild Kirchli, industry of, 331
• Will, 221, 232, 235;
• insatiable, 232;
• of man, free, 232;
• self-determining or reflexive, 232;
• superior to sensual appetite, 235
• Wing venation, 49 note, 49
• Wisconsin, Cambrian sediments of, 105
• Wolffian duct, 281, 282
• Woods Hole, 23, 42, 47
• World War, 359
• Worm, 249
• Wormwood, 248, 255;
• common, 255
• Würtzburg, School of, 219
• X-rays, 144, 317
• Yoldia Sea, 289
• Yolk-sac, 276
• Zamia, 118
• Zebra, 81
• Zones, stratigraphic, 96, 103, 106;
• zoögeographical, 99
• Zoölogists, 66, 77
• Zoölogy, 35, 37, 55, 126, 304
• Zoöpsychologists, 240
• Zygote, 25, 136, 156-158