THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY 



JUNE, 1914 



FACTS AND FACTOES OF DEVELOPMENT * 



By Professor EDWIN GRANT CONKLIN 



PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 



Introduction 



ONE of the greatest results of the doctrine of organic evolution has 

 been the determination of man's place in nature. For many 

 centuries it has been known that in bodily structures man is an animal 

 — that he is born, nourished and developed, that he matures, reproduces 

 and dies just as does the humblest animal or plant. For centuries it 

 has been known that man belongs to that group of animals which have 

 backbones, the vertebrates, to that class which have hair and suckle their 

 young, the mammals, and to that order which have grasping hands, flat 

 nails, and thoracic mammae, the primates, which group includes also 

 the monkeys and apes. But as long as it was supposed that every species 

 was distinct in its origin from every other one, and that each arose by a 

 special divine fiat, it was possible to maintain that man was absolutely 

 distinct from the rest of the animal world, and that he had no kinship 

 to the beasts, though undoubtedly he was made in their bodily image. 

 But with the establishment of the doctrine of organic evolution this 

 resemblance between man and the lower animals has come to have a new 

 significance. The almost universal acceptance of this doctrine by sci- 

 entific men, the many undoubted resemblances between man and the 

 lower animals, and the discovery of the remains of lower types of man, 

 real " missing links," has inevitably led to the conclusion that man also 

 is a product of evolution, that he is a part of the great world of living 

 things and not a being who stands apart in solitary grandeur in some 

 isolated sphere. 



But wholly aside from the doctrine of evolution, the fact that essen- 

 tial and fundamental resemblances exist among all kinds of organisms 

 can not fail to impress thoughtful men. The great life processes are 

 everywhere the same in principles, though varying greatly in details. 



i. First of the Norman W. Harris Lectures for 1914 at Northwestern Uni- 

 versity on "Heredity and Environment in the Development of Men"; to be pub- 

 lished by the Princeton University Press. 



VOL. LXXXIV. — 36. 



