o 



66 BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



added another by the discovery in 1906 of a supposed prim- 

 itive race of men in Nebraska. The two skulls unearthed 

 in Douglass County in that State indicate a cranial capacity 

 falling below that of the " Australian negro, the lowest existing 

 type of mankind known at present." 



Fig. Ill shows in outline profile reconstructions of the 

 skulls of some of the fossil types as compared with the short- 

 headed type of Europe. 



Pakeontological discoveries are thus coming to support 

 the evidences of man's e\olution derived from embryology 

 and archaeology. While we must admit that the geological 

 evidences are at present fragmentary, there is, nevertheless, 

 reasonable ground for the expectation that they will be 

 extended by more systematic explorations of caverns and 

 deposits of the quarternary and late tertiary periods. 



Mental Evolution. — Already the horizon is being wid- 

 ened, and new problems in human evolution have been opened. 

 The evidences in reference to the evolution of the human 

 body are so compelling as to be already generally accepted, 

 and we have now the question of evolution of mentality to 

 deal with. The progressive intelligence of animals is shown 

 to depend upon the structure of the brain and the nervous 

 svstem, and there exists such a finelv sjraded series in this 

 respect that there is strong evidence of the derivation of hu- 

 man faculties from brute faculties. 



Sweep of the Doctrine of Evolution. — The great sweep 

 of the doctrine of evolution makes it "one of the greatest 

 acquisitions of human knowledge." There has been no 

 point of intellectual vantage reached which is more inspiring. 

 It is so comprehensive that it enters into all realms of thought. 

 Weismann expresses the o])inion that "the theory of descent 

 is the most progressive step that has been taken in the devel- 

 opment of human knowledge," and says that this position 

 "is justified, it seems to me, even by this fact alone: that the 



