BIOMETRIC IDEAS AND METHODS 55 



of the individual. It describes the individual in 

 terms of its own qualities or attributes. If an 

 adequate description of the individual is given, it 

 does not concern itself solely with the separate 

 parts, but discusses the qualities and attributes 

 of the individual as a whole. Thus it would not 

 be an adequate description of a man to say that he 

 was the sum of such and such bones, muscles, 

 nerves, and blood vessels. A cat possesses much 

 the same bones, muscles, nerves, and blood vessels 

 that a man has. It is probably no exaggeration 

 to say that the similarity between man and cats 

 in respect to these organ systems is so great that 

 a person without previous experience of either — 

 say a Martian — unless he were deeply versed 

 in anatomy, might very possibly consider cats 

 to be dwarf men if he had as a basis of distinction 

 only a formal description of the organ systems 

 named. Any adequate description of an organism 

 must include as its most fundamental and im- 

 portant part an account of the attributes and 

 qualities of that organism as a whole. ^ 



Now a little consideration will serve to convince 

 one that the ordinary methods of description as 

 used in biology fail {i.e., become altogether inade- 

 quate) when the attempt is made to deal with any 

 group of individuals, as for example a population, 



^ This point has been developed in a masterly way in a paper 

 by Professor William E, Ritter, having the title "Life from the 

 Biologist's Standpoint" in Popular Science Monthly, August, 1909. 



