IMPROBABLE CASES 131 



peculiarity in question is supposed to be a reversion, although 

 evidence of the pedigree is wanting. And the terribly vicious 

 circle is not unknown of arguing to a supposed ancestor from the 

 supposed reversion, and then justifying the term " reversion " by 

 its resemblance to the supposed ancestor. Playing with biology 

 can hardly go further than this! Moreover, the postulate of 

 characters remaining latent (save for occasional more or less 

 hypothetical reawakenings) for millions of years, is made as 

 glibly as if it were just as conceivable as a throw-back to a 

 great-grandfather. 



There are many reasons why it is absurd to describe a Cyclopean 

 one-eyed human monster as a reversion to the one-eyed larval 

 ascidian. One is that there is no warrant for believing that 

 the ascidian type was in the direct line of our long pedigree. 



One of the diagnostic features of gout is the presence of uric acid 

 in the blood, and its deposition in various tissues of the body (doubt- 

 less helped by the frequently associated degeneration of the kidney, 

 which is normally competent to filter out the normal nitrogenous 

 waste-product, which is mostly in the form of urea). It is known, 

 however, that reptiles, for instance, like many backboneless animals, 

 normally excrete most or a large part of their nitrogenous waste in 

 the form of uric acid. This has led even such an eminent pathologist 

 as Prof. Hamilton (1900, p. 297) to say, "May we not entertain, 

 as a possibility, that the gouty constitution, so-called, is in part a 

 reversion to some far-back ancestor, in which uric acid was excreted 

 normally to a much larger extent than it is at present in an average 

 member of the human race ? " That is to say, the gouty person 

 reverts to the physiological habit of a far-back ancestral organism 

 (not even any known mammalian type), which had uric acid as a 

 characteristic waste-product, but he does not, unfortunately, revert 

 to the associated condition of having kidneys able to excrete the 

 uric acid adequately. But our simple point is that the supposition 

 of gouty tendencies lying latent in some form or other through 

 literally millions of years taxes our imagination too severely. Such 

 instances are almost sufficient to damn the reversion hypothesis 

 altogether. 



