June 13, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



927 



stance, is a matter of inference rather than 

 of observation, are we sure that we have a 

 better guarantee for it than a previous 

 century had for phlogiston? Our good 

 opinion of ourselves, as compared with our 

 scientific fathers, makes lis think we have. 

 1 think myself that we have ; and yet, re- 

 member, it is the same human nature which 

 judged that evidence then, that judges 

 this evidence now, and remember that how- 

 ever rapidly science changes human nature 

 remains very much the same, and always 

 has a good conceit of itself. 



While we are venturing to utter truisms, 

 I repeat, let us take once more this one, 

 home to ourselves, that there is a great deal 

 of this 'human natui-e' even in the best 

 type of the scientific man, and that we of 

 this twentieth century share it with our 

 predecessors, on whom we look pityingly, 

 as our successors will look on us. 



Let us repeat, and repeat once more, that 

 though nature be external to ourselves, the 

 so-called ' laws of nature ' are from within 

 ^laws of our own minds— and a simple 

 product of our human nature. Let us 

 agree that the scientific imagination can 

 suggest questions to put to nature, but not 

 her answers. Let us read Bacon again, and 

 agree with him that we understand only 

 what we have observed. Finally let us 

 add that we never understand even that, in 

 the fullness of its meaning, for remember 

 that of all the so-called laws of nature the 

 most constantly observed and most inti- 

 mately and personally known to us, are 

 those of life and death— and how much do 

 we know about the meaning of them? 



S. P. Langlet. 



Smithsonian Institution. 



KINETIC EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



In a recent number of Science Mr. W 



J McGee has sununarized his reasons for 



holding that anthropological evolution is a 



process of integration standing in direct 



contrast to the divergence of biological 

 evolution : 



"The great fact attested by all observa- 

 tion on human development, and suscepti- 

 ble of verification in every province and 

 people, is that mankind is not differen- 

 tiating in either physical or psychical as- 

 pects, but are converging, integrating, 

 blending, imifying, both as organisms and 

 as superorganic groups. 



"Everywhere the developmental lines 

 converge forward and diverge backward, 

 just as the lines of biotic development di- 

 verge forward and converge backward. 

 How this discrepancy is to be removed is 

 a question whose importance increases with 

 every advance in the science of anthro- 

 pology."* 



That human evokition is synthetic ap- 

 pears undeniable, but the discrepancy 

 pointed out by Mr. McGee has been re- 

 moved in advance by the recognition of 

 the same leading principle in biological 

 evolution. Man is better known than" any 

 other animal, and evolutionary theories 

 which do not accommodate this best certi- 

 fied series of biological facts might well 

 have been distrusted. The kinetic factor 

 of synthesis has been neglected because 

 biologists as well as anthropologists have 

 failed to perceive that evolutionary prog- 

 ress is a caiise instead of a result of the 

 difi:erentiation of species or varieties, but 

 since evolution must be studied in species 

 an adequate comprehension of the evolu- 

 tionary phenomena of any specific group 

 should make plain their relation to more 

 general principles. 



Isolation and segregation favor con- 

 stancy in the characters by which systema- 

 tists are accustomed to distinguish spe- 

 cies, but it is as erroneous with other 

 animals as with man to infer from this 

 that isolation conduces to evolutionary 



* ' Current Questions in Anthropology,' Science, 

 N. S., Vol. 14, No. 365, pp. 996 and 997. 



