122 



* KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[April 2, 1888. 



the Indo-European, on tlie whole, stands higher than the 

 other races iu the acceleration of those parts by which the 

 body is maintained in an erect position, and in the want of 

 prominence of the jaws and cheek-bones, which are asso- 

 ciated with a greater predominance of the ceiebral part of 

 the skull and consequently greater intellectual power. 



Dr. Harrison Allen,* in a study of the shape of the hind- 

 limb as modified by the weight of the trunk, dwells on the 

 manner of articulation in the gorilla of the fibula with both 

 calcaneum and the astragalus, as well as the fact that the 

 astragalus in that genus possessed a broad, deflected fibula 

 facet, and says : " This pecular projection is rudimental in 

 the astragalus of civilised man, but was found highly de- 

 veloped in an astragalus from an Indian grave found at 

 Cooper's Point, New Jersey." 



In my Buffalo address, I alluded to a paper by Professor 

 N. S. Shaler on the intense selective action which must 

 have taken place in the shape and character of the pelvis in 

 man on his assumption of the erect posture — the caudal 

 vertebra? turning inward, the lower portion of the pelvis 

 drawing together to hold the viscera, which had before 

 rested on the elastic abdominal walls, the attending difS- 

 culty of parturition, &e. Dr. S. V. Clevenger t has since 

 called attention to other inconveniences resulting from man's 

 escajie from his quadrumanous ancestors. In a paper en- 

 titled "Disadvantages of the Upright Position," he dwells 

 particularly on the valves in the veins to assist the return of 

 blood to tlie heart, which, considered from the usual teleo- 

 logical point of view .seems right enough ; but why, he asks, 

 should man have valves in the intercostal veins ? He shows 

 that in a recumbent position these valves are an actual detri- 

 ment to the flow of blood : " An apparent anomaly exists iu 

 the absence of valves fi-om parts where they are most 

 needed, such as the vena? cava?, spinal, iliac, hemorrhoidal, 

 and portal. The azj'gos veins have important valves. 

 Place man upon 'all-fours,' and the law governing the 

 presence and absence of valves is at once apparent, applicable, 

 so far as I have been able to ascertain, to all quadrupedal 

 and quadrumanous animals. Dorsad veins are valved ; 

 cephalad, ventrad, and caudad veins have no valves." By 

 means of two simple diagrams he shows clearly the distri- 

 bution of valved and unvalved veins .as they exist in 

 mammals, and why in man the same arrangement becomes 

 detrimental. He dwells on the number of lives that are 

 sacrificed every year by the absence of valves in the hemor- 

 rhoidal veins. He also mentions other disadvantages in the 

 upright attitude, as seen in the position of the femoral 

 artery, even with man's ability to protect it. Its exposed 

 condition is a dangerous element. Inguinal hernia, of rare 

 occurrence in mammals, occurs very often in man, at least 

 20 per cent, being affected. Strangulated hernia also causes 

 many deaths. Prolapsus uteri and other troubles and 

 diseases are referred to by Dr. Clevenger as due to the 

 upright position. In other words, the penalties of original 

 sin are in fact the penalties resulting from man's assumption 

 of the erect posture. [For an account of Dr. Clevenger's 

 views, see article on " Upright Man " in my " Universe of 

 Suns."— Pv. P.] 



In another paper by the same author,! on the " Origin 

 and Descent of the Human Brain," he gives an interesting 

 sketch of the phylogenesis of the spinal cord to its ultimate 

 culmination in the development of the brain of man. He 

 says that the most general interest centx-es in the large mass 

 of cells and nerve-fibres called the cerebrum. " In the 

 ornithorhynchus it is smooth and simple in form, but the 



* " Proceedings of the Pbifadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences," 

 1S8.5, p. 383. 

 t '• American Naturalist," vol. sviii., p. 1, 

 } "American Naturalist," vol. sv., p. S13. 



beaver also has an unconvoluted brjin, which shows at once 

 the folly of attaching psychological importance to the number 

 and intricac}' of folds in animal brains. With phrenology, 

 which finds bibativeness in the mastoid process of the tem- 

 poral bone, and amativeness in the ocuipital ridge, the con- 

 volutional controversies must die out, as has the so-called 

 science of palmistry, which reads one's fate and fortune in 

 the skin-folds of the hand." 



Professor Alexander Grahatu Bell * has presented a 

 memoir to the National Academy on the " Formation of a 

 Deaf Variety of the Human Rice," in which he shows by 

 tables a series of generations of certain families in which 

 the progenitors being deaf-mutes this peculiarity becomes 

 perpetuated in many of the descendants. Eecognising fully 

 the laws of heredity, natural selection, &c., he shows that 

 the establishment of deaf-mute schools, in which a visual 

 language is taught which the pupils alone under.stand, tends 

 to bring them into close association with one another ; and 

 that naturally, with this seclusion, acquaintance ripens into 

 friendship and love, and that statistics show that there is 

 now in process of being built up a deaf variety of man. 



Dr. W. K. Brooks,t animated by the cogency of Professor 

 Bell's reasoning, is led to prepnre an article, entitled " Can 

 INIan be Modified by Selection?" In this paper he discusses 

 the startling proposition of Professor Bell, and recognises the 

 convincing proof which he furnishes to show that the law of 

 .selection does place within our reach a powerful influence for 

 the improvement of our race. The striking character of the 

 tables of facts presented by Professor Bell, and the .significant 

 suggestions of Dr. Brooks, lead one to consider how f;ir the 

 influence of selection has had to do with the character of 

 great communities, as to their intelligence or ignorance. 

 When we see nations of the same great race-stock, one 

 showing a high percentage of illiterates, a high death-rate, 

 degradation and ignorance, while just across the borders 

 another nation, apparently no better oflf so far as physical 

 environments are concerned, with percentage of illiterates 

 and death-rate low, intelligent and cleanly, we are led to 

 inquire if here a strict scientific scrutiny with careful his- 

 torical investigation will not reveal the cause of these condi- 

 tions. Can it be proved beyond question that the illiteracy 

 and degradation of Italy and Spain, up to within recent 

 years at least, is the result of centuries of church oppression 

 and the Inquisition, destroying at once or driving out of the 

 land all independent thinkers, and at the .same time forcing 

 her priests to lead celibate lives and inducing others of culti- 

 vated and gentle miuds to lead cloister lives? Is it also a 

 fact, as Alphonse de Candolle asserts, that by far the greater 

 number of distinguished scientists have come from Protestant 

 pastors ] He gives a significant list of eminent men whoso 

 fathers were Protestant pastors, saying that, had they been 

 priests of another religion, leading celibate lives, these men 

 would not have been born. 



It is con.sidered an intrusion into matters which do not 

 concern science when such inquiries are made, but the 

 scientist has very deeply at heart the intellectual and moral 

 welfare of the community. If the cause of degi-adation and 

 ignorance, of poverty, of contagious disease, or of any of the 

 miseries which makes a nation wretched, can be pointed out 

 by scientific methods, then it is the stern duty of Science to 

 step in, and at least show the reasons, even if the remedy is 

 not .at once forthcoming. The men who would be reformers 

 and agitators, and who by their earnestness and devotion 

 got the attention of multitudes, are unfit for their work if 

 they show their ignorance, as most of them do, of the 

 doctrines of natural selection and derivation. 



* " Memoirs of the National Academy of Science," vol. ii., fourth 

 memoir. 

 f " Popular Science Monthly," vol ssvii , p. 15, 



