550 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



it simply pushes the inquiry back to that period, " 200 generations 

 or more.' 1 



In this connection it may be remarked that atavism is not un- 

 commonly invoked as the explanation of feeble-mind edness, which 

 is one of the most prevalent forms of degeneracy. It is contended 

 that, for some reason or other, these persons reproduce, or hark 

 back to, a stage of mental development which was typical of savage 

 or prehistoric man, but from which normal mankind have evolved. 

 It is inferentially suggested that, although mental defectives are 

 incapable of holding their own in a civilized community, they would 

 not be incapable of so doing among these more primitive types. 

 I can not accept this view. I find it exceedingly difficult to believe 

 that the feeble-minded members of a civilized community would be 

 any better able to hold their own among a community of savages 

 than they are in their present environment ; and I find it still more 

 difficult to imagine that such persons represent a normal develop- 

 mental phase in the mental evolution of the human race. 



In this place also reference may be made to a recent work by V. A. 

 Moschkoff (Neue Theorie von der Abstammung des Menschen und 

 seiner Degeneration). This author looks upon the whole of man- 

 kind as being blended in various degrees from two types — white 

 diluvial man and Pithecanthropus. He describes the physical, men- 

 tal, and moral characteristics of these types with a minuteness which 

 puts the deductive ability of Owen completely in the shade, and 

 which might, indeed, almost be the outcome of a personal acquaint- 

 ance with these primeval beings in the flesh. White diluvial man 

 would appear to have been a sort of Apollo, the possessor of many 

 beauties and virtues, and of a body which was in every way more 

 perfect than any now existing. Pithecanthropus, on the other hand, 

 was a speechless, repulsive being, apparently somewhat midway 

 between an African pygmy and a modern gorilla. According to 

 Moschkoff, not only is degeneracy, as seen in idiots, cretins, and cer- 

 tain ethnic groups, clue to a reversion to the pithecanthropic element, 

 but the alternate expression of the characters of these two stocks 

 takes place at different ages in the same individual and at different 

 cycles in the life of the nation, and so leads to successive alterations 

 of individual character, and even to progressive and retrogressive 

 changes involving the whole community. Even civil wars and 

 internal dissensions, which the sociologist usually attributes to eco- 

 nomic causes, are claimed by the author as being due to the swing 

 of the pendulum bringing into play a preponderating pithecanthropic 

 element. And the pendulum would appear to swing so regularly 

 that, given the requisite biological data, he would even be able to 

 forecast which would be the fat and which the lean years of a nation's 

 future. Can anything more be expected of science than this ? 



