THE STORY OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY SCIENCE 



the potentialities of a highly differentiated adult being. 

 The fact that it does contain such potentialities is the 

 most familiar of e very-day biological observations, but 

 not even a proximal explanation of the fact is as yet 

 attainable. 



Turning from the cell as an individual to the mature 

 organism which the cell composes when aggregated 

 with its fellows, one finds the usual complement of open 

 questions, of greater or less significance, focalizing the 

 attention of working biologists. Thus the evolutionist, 

 secure as is his general position, is yet in doubt when 

 it comes to tracing the exact lineage of various forms. 

 He does not know, for example, exactly which order 

 of invertebrates contains the type from which verte- 

 brates sprang, though several hotly contested opin- 

 ions, each exclusive of the rest, are in the field. Again, 

 there is like uncertaint} 7 and difference of opinion 

 as to just which order of lower vertebrates formed 

 the direct ancestry of the mammals. Among the mam- 

 mals themselves there are several orders, such as the 

 whales, the elephants, and even man himself, whose ex- 

 act lines of more immediate ancestry are not as fully 

 revealed by present paleontology as is to be fully 

 desired. 



All these, however, are details that hardly take rank 

 with the general problems that we are noticing. There 

 are other questions, however, concerning the history 

 and present evolution of man himself, that are of wider 

 scope, or at least of seeming!} 7 greater importance from 

 a human stand-point, which within recent decades have 

 come for the first time within the scope of truly induc- 

 tive science. These are the problems of anthropology 

 a science of such wide scope, such far-reaching col- 



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