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can, nevertheless, so influence the germ-plasm of his parents that their American- 
born progeny will be instantaneously modified. I know that it is easy to find 
parallels from biology, and especially from botany, to justify such an influence 
on the germ-plasm in the case of sudden changes of temperature, climate, soil, 
and other conditions of life; but until Professor Boas has dealt more exhaustively 
than he has, even in his second report, with the possibility of racial admixture 
as the obvious explanation of his statistics, and excluded it definitely, anthro- 
pologists must continue to view his data and the inferences from them with the 
most profound suspicion. 
I for one am quite prepared, if not to admit, at any rate to recognise the 
possibility that a new environment might produce immediate changes in the 
physical characteristics of the human body. The multiplicity of internal secre- 
tions that recent research in physiology has shown to influence the growth of 
the various tissues of the body, and the immediate effects of a slight increase or 
diminution in the activity of the glands providing such secretions, which may 
perhaps be caused by new dietetic, climatic, or other conditions, are quite sufti- 
cient to suggest that the observer must keep his mind open impartially to view 
new observations concerning the immediate effect of a new environment on 
individuals, such as might conceivably afford a handle for the forces of natural 
selection to seize hold of and produce changes in the progeny of the altered 
parents; but there is a vast difference between admitting the possibility and 
recognising the proof of such an hypothesis; and I am still entirely sceptical of 
Professor Boas’s so-called proofs. One is certainly not the more disposed to 
accept such hypotheses when the attempt is made to bolster them up with a tissue 
of statements intended to minimise or even deny those physical, mental, and 
moral distinctions between different races of mankind,’ the results of many 
millennia of years of differentiation, the reality of which is substantiated by the 
whole history of the world and the experience of those who have watched the 
intercourse of the various peoples. 
Difference of race implies a real and deep-rooted distinction in physical, 
mental, and moral qualities ; and the contrasts in the achievements of the various 
peoples cannot be explained away by lack of opportunities, in face of the patent 
fact that among the most backward races of the present day are some that first 
came into contact with, or even were the founders of, civilisation, and were most 
favourably placed for acquiring culture and material supremacy. 
It is not, however, with such contentious matters as the precise mode of 
operation of evolution at the present day that I propose to deal; nor yet with 
the discussion of when and how the races of mankind became specialised and 
differentiated the one from the other. It is the much older story of the origin 
of Man himself and the first glimmerings of human characteristics amidst even 
Bo remotest of his ancestors to which I invite you to give some consideration 
to-day. 
In a recently published book * the statement is made that ‘the uncertainties 
as to Man’s pedigree and antiquity are still great, and it is undeniably difficult 
to discover the factors in his emergence and ascent.’ There is undoubtedly the 
widest divergence of opinion as to the precise pedigree; nevertheless, there seems 
to me to be ample evidence now available to justify us sketching the genealogy 
of Man and confidently drawing up his pedigree as far back as Eocene times—a 
matter of a million years or so—with at least as much certainty of detail and 
completeness as in the case of any other recent mammal; and if all the factors in 
his emergence are not yet known, there is one unquestionable, tangible factor 
that we can seize hold of and examine—the steady and uniform development of 
the brain along a well-defined course throughout the Primates right up to Man— 
which must give us the fundamental reason for ‘Man’s emergence and ascent,’ 
whatever other factors may contribute toward that consummation. 
We have this advantage over most of our predecessors, in approaching the 
consideration of the problems of the gradual emergence of human traits from the 
uncouth simian features of our ancestors, that the main contention, the fact of 
the ‘ Descent of Man,’ is now generally admitted; and it is no part of our task 
to discuss more or less irrelevant side-issues, born of prejudice, superstition, and 
* The Mind of Primitive Man, 1911. 
* J. A. Thomson and P. Geddes, Hvolution, 1912, p. 102. 
1912. PP 
