22 C. W. M. Poynter 



ject. A glance at the literature will show the enormous amount 

 of work that has been done during the last two decades. Much 

 of the earlier work has been made worthless by recent investi- 

 gations, and still many questions of homology are unsettled. 



From the earliest period of the study of the cerebral cortex it 

 has been believed that the degree of intelligence is indicated by 

 the convolution pattern, and as the individual observer has dis- 

 covered what to him is satisfactory evidence for or against this 

 idea, he has joined the controversy. If a character of the ape 

 brain appears in man, is it an indication of mental inferiority ; is 

 a fissure of the type found in the embryo, when persistent, a psy- 

 chic handicap to the individual ; or is a fissure, constant in 

 the lower races, when present in an individual of a higher civ- 

 ilization, an indication of inferiority to his race? These and other 

 like questions must undoubtedly be answered in the negative until 

 we have a more exact method of investigation than any so far 

 employed. 



Sergi (1910a) does not believe in attempting to homologize 

 various fissures or convolutions between man and apes, for he 

 does not admit a phylum between the anthropoids and man, and 

 the one and the other constitute diverging branches which can 

 have homologies develop only in the branches. This idea has 

 been similarly expressed by Kohlbriigge (1909), who considers 

 the Anthropoidae highly specialized forms springing from a differ- 

 ent branch than that for man, and consequently the two cannot be 

 brought into close comparison of structures. Smith (p. 126, 

 1904c) has called attention to the too broad use of embryology in 

 the solution of morphological problems. The acceptance of these 

 ideas would mean the elimination of a part of the published work. 

 But perhaps this would not prove a great loss to the science for 

 the great mass of heterogeneous facts derived from such investi- 

 gations have so far failed to yield a classification indicating 

 morphological significance. 



Kohlbriigge (1908) thinks that the lack of mce characters in 

 the convolution pattern in no way proves that it is not related to 

 the psychic side of the individual. It may well be that these 

 fissure forms, so far unintelligible, are the key to character (not 



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