1897- HUMAN EVOLUTION. 187 



instead of maintaining that, because we do not differ at birth from 

 Palaeolithic babies, therefore we are devoted to savagery unless saved 

 by nurture, to urge that the progress already made proves our descent 

 from a gifted stock innately destined to great things. He himself, 

 curiously enough, admits racial differences among mankind, and he 

 can find a mass of arguments in Galton's writings, in the results 

 of recent archaeological research, and, among other treatises, in 

 Weismann's " Essay on the Musical Sense," I should be interested 

 to see what Mr. Wells' ingenuity could effect with this inverted 

 argument. After all, what we primarily need is ample discussion, 

 from every point of view, of our anthropological data. 



F. H. Perry Coste. 

 13, Fernshaw Road, Chelsea. 



II. — According to Mr. G. Archdall Reid.' 



To choose a title that shall adequately cover, and no more than 

 cover, the subject of which an author treats is certainly a difficult 

 task. Mr. Reid has failed to perform it. His volume entitled " The 

 Present Evolution of Man " contains a first portion, dealing with 

 Organic Evolution, to which the title gives no clue, while only in the 

 second part of the work is the subject really discussed. On the other 

 hand his title indicates a vast subject of which he considers only a 

 small part. Man's present evolution is dealt with under two sub- 

 headings. Physical and Mental : the former concerned only with man 

 in reference to disease ; the latter, with man in reference to indulgence 

 in stimulants and narcotics. This is certainly a very partial treat- 

 ment of a subject with such possibilities as the present evolution 

 of Man. 



Mr. Reid has somewhat mistaken the term " Evolution." In one 

 case he says (p. 7) " the process of evolution has generally been in an 

 upward direction ;" but in other cases he uses the term evolution in 

 opposition to " retrogression." The second use is at variance with 

 the first ; and it is incorrect. Evolution, the act of unfolding, is strictly 

 applicable to all the phenonema connected with the succession of 

 organic life, as it has unfolded, does, and will unfold itself. 



This unfolding has been in the form sometimes of continued 

 progression, sometimes of retrogression after progression, and fre- 

 quently of progression in certain features combined with retrogression 

 in others. " Evolution," therefore, does not, as Mr. Reid seems to 

 think, imply only progress. 



There is yet other misuse of terms, as in such sentences as these 

 (p. 21) : *' In every species natural selection as a cause of evolution 

 [progression] , and atavism as a cause of retrogression, are constantly at 



1 " The Present Evolution of Man." By G. Archdall Reid. Pp. 370. London : 

 Chapman and Hall, 1896. Price 7s. 6d 



