vi Dedicatory Epistle 



mentioned with approval as an important contri- 

 bution originating with me ; and in Drummond's 

 "Ascent of Man," which is really built upon it, 

 credit is cordially given me. 1 



Indeed, down to the present time, I have been 

 left almost in exclusive possession of that area of 

 speculation which is occupied with the genesis of 

 Man as connected with that prolongation of in- 

 fancy which first began to become conspicuous in 

 the manlike apes. There are many who assent to 

 what I have put forth, but few who seem inclined 

 to enter that difficult field on the marchland be- 

 tween biology, psychology, and sociology. Doubt- 

 less this is because the attention of the scientific 

 world has for forty years been absorbed in the more 

 general questions concerning the competency of 

 natural selection, the causes of variation, the agen- 

 cies alleged by Lamarck, and in these latter days 

 Weismannism, etc. In course of time, however, 

 the more special problems connected with man's 

 genesis will surely come uppermost, and then we 

 may hope to see the causes of the lengthening of 

 infancy investigated by thinkers duly conversant 

 alike with psychology and embryology. 



Questions of priority in originating new theories 



1 The Ascent of Man, pp. 282-291 ; cf. Tyler, The Whence and 

 the Whither of Man, pp. 179, 217, etc. 



