240 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL VI. No. 1184 



extant anthropoids, orang, gibbon, gorilla and 

 chimpanzee are intended." He proceeds to 

 cite Duckworth to prove that this is an error, 

 and concludes, so far as one can judge of his 

 meaning, that man and the anthropoids are 

 " not genetically related " — an amazing non 

 sequitur. 



One may parallel his argirment in some such 

 form as this : The existing Nordic peoples are 

 currently asserted to be descendants of prim- 

 itive races of man. The evident implication 

 is that the extant primitive races, negroes, 

 Australians, Eed Indians, and Polynesians 

 are intended. But Professor Ripley has re- 

 cently shown that none of these races, consti- 

 tuted as they now are, figured in the ancestral 

 history of the Nordic race. This may relieve 

 our anxieties lest we might be descended from 

 savages. .While we do not know as much 

 about such creatures as we might, it is per- 

 fectly clear that there is nothing to the absurd 

 tradition that we Nordics are descended from 

 them or they from us. It appears to be a 

 sound principle that groups showing inverse 

 developments are not genetically related, and 

 it is well known that the Nordics are un- 

 usually light-colored while the savage races 

 are remarkably dark; that the high and 

 straight nose of the Nordic and his blue eyes 

 are not to be found in these so-called inferior 

 races of mankind; while most of them display 

 thick lips which do not appear in the Nordic 

 race. 



And so on — but this surely is a sufficient 

 reductio ad absurdum. Who believes that the 

 human race is descended from the existing 

 anthropoid apes ? Who . ever did that knew 

 anything about it? How could it be so? 

 How could prehistoric human beings be de- 

 scended from anthropoids still living, unless, 

 like Rider Haggard's " She," they were en- 

 dowed with eternal life to outlive their de- 

 scendants? Surely the writer can not but 

 know that the current assertion means and 

 can mean only that man is descended from the 

 same ancestral stock as the anthropoid apes. 

 What that ancestral stock was like, and how 

 far and in what directions its living descend- 

 ants have departed from it, is the problem 



which the " scientists " (whom he puts in 

 " quotes " apparently intended in some obscure 

 derogatory sense) are trying to find out, by 

 the inferential evidence of anatomy, physiol- 

 ogy, and kindred sciences, and by the direct 

 but as yet scanty evidence of paleontology and 

 archeology. 



The final paragraph opens with a curious 

 sentence which I quote : 



Whether "scientists" are entitled to believe 

 what they please or are to be guided by observa- 

 tions and verifications is perhaps an open ques- 

 tion. 



Possibly I am mistaken and Mr. Curtis 

 means by " scientists " the followers of Mrs. 

 Eddy. I don't know their principles very well, 

 but very possibly they do consider them- 

 selves entitled to " believe what they please " 

 irrespective of evidence other than the asser- 

 tions of " Science and Health." But surely 

 no scientific man — without quotes — thinks 

 himself entitled to believe anything regarding 

 science save upon the evidence of observations 

 and conclusions made and verified by himself 

 and others. Nor does anybody else. The 

 attitude is not peculiar to science. It is the 

 ordinary man's attitude towards the common 

 world about us ; and science has no other atti- 

 tude than that. 



It is difficult to see in this letter anything 

 save an attempt to discredit theories which 

 the writer, without knowing much about them, 

 does not wish to believe. I can hardly suppose 

 that many readers of Science will take the 

 argument seriously, in spite of a not incon- 

 siderable dialectic skill. But however appro- 

 priate in some theological journal it appears 

 somewhat in the category of " eccentric liter- 

 ature " in its present surroundings. 



W. D. Matthew 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



Bibliography of William Henry Welch, M.D., 



LL.D., 1875-1917. Prepared by Walter C. 



BuRKET, M.D., with foreword by Henry M. 



HuRD, M.D. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins 



Press. 47 pp. 4°. 



This is a notable contribution to medical 

 bibliography, in the special sense of the term. 



