GREAT STEPS IN ORGANIC EVOLUTION 901 



It must be distinguished from imperfections that result from arrest 

 of development, such as hare-lip, or a slight lack of finish in the 

 heart. It would be interesting to inquire whether the imperfect 

 warm-bloodedness of some mammals, notably the hibernators, was 

 an arrest of development, for the newborn mammal is often, though 

 not always, comparatively cold-blooded; or whether it was some- 

 times a persistent reptilian anachronism. The second interpretation 

 is suggested in the case of the two old-fashioned egg-laying mam- 

 mals, the duckmole and the spiny ant-eater (Ornithorhyncus and 

 Echidna), both very imperfectly warm-blooded. 



Anachronisms are familiar in domesticated animals, as in the 

 "shying" horse, or in the dog that turns round and round in the 

 imaginary herbage of the hearthrug. Some of the ways of children, 

 that are often misunderstood, are just anachronisms; as may be 

 illustrated by the reassertion of desires for a primitive dietary. 

 Prof. M. S. Pembrey writes in a recent collective work, Evolution 

 in the Light of Modern Knowledge (Blackie, Glasgow, 1925): "The 

 child shows that he retains some of the primitive instincts which 

 are a guide to life ; he has a great liking for raw fruit, nuts, turnips, 

 and swedes, which are regarded by his elders as indigestible. These 

 raw foods have been recognised recently as rich in constituents 

 especially valuable for healthy growth. The petty pilfering of 

 orchards by children should be regarded as a sign, not of original 

 sin, but of an instinctive desire for vitamins." 



It is not in children only that anachronisms persist, for there are 

 survivals of old types among those who have reached years of great 

 discretion. Tennyson speaks of the ape and tiger within us, and 

 Walt Whitman confessed that he was stuccoed all over with 

 quadrupeds. The robber baron is with us still, in "all the ranks of 

 society"; and the patriarchate survives in many a household. No 

 one who has not been a-shootin' or a-fishin' can regard poaching as 

 a serious moral offence ; it is onty an anachronism. But we are afraid 

 to pursue this line of thought. It should be noted, however, that it 

 is bad biology to think of these ancient strands in our personality 

 as persisting in their primeval simioid or tigroid or neanderthaloid 

 texture. The organism is a unity and is always making itself a unity 

 afresh; the ancient strands, though often so liable to knot, have all 

 been in some measure humanised. 



No doubt there are anachronistic occupations and professions. 

 The "worm-eaters" who make new furniture look old, must surely 

 be anachronisms, if the word means anything; and the quack is an 

 anachronism in these days when there are so many good doctors 

 unemployed. Even lecturing is in no small degree an anachronism, 

 in its too frequent attempt to ignore the invention of printing. In 

 his work on the Ancien Regime, Taine gives a list of honorary or 

 supernumerary posts at the Court of Versailles, such as the Steward 



