THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN BODY 303 



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 "tuber- 

 cule" with the apex of bestial ears. "The acute extremity 

 of the pointed animal ear," says this author, "does not corre- 

 spond 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, fluctua- 

 tions 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 pe- 

 culiarity 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 occur- 

 rence 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. Varia- 

 tions 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 interpret- 

 ing these anatomical irregularities as "reversive" or "atavistic" 

 is that they would connect man with all sorts of quite im- 

 possible lines of descent. "In my early days of anatomy," 



