Junk 13, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



929 



the geuus Homo they may include. On 

 the other hand it seems preferable to admit 

 that these islanders are but outliers of the 

 larger curl-haired specific complex which 

 covered the Old World before the arrival 

 of the coarse-haired, smooth-skinned Amer- 

 ican species of mankind. On the conti- 

 nents strictly isolated groups have seldom 

 existed for long periods, although the sep- 

 aration of remote peoples has been suffi- 

 cient to permit the accumulation of diverse 

 habits and characteristics which in less ac- 

 tive, intelligent and resourceful animals 

 would have resulted in disintegration into 

 many segregated species. 



A kinetic theory of evolution permits us 

 to recognize the fact that with man, as in 

 other lines of descent, there have been 

 both differentiation and integration, and 

 these not at separate times, but simulta- 

 neously and universally.* Moreover, we 

 gain a standpoint from which many formal 

 propositions like monogenesis and polygen- 

 esis appear unnecessary for the exposition 

 of evolutionary facts. From the stand- 

 point of biological evolution it is about 

 equally improbable that any given species 

 has descended from one or two parents as 

 that it has been compounded from distinct 

 lines of descent. Mr. Keane, who is cited by 

 Mr. McGee as a polygenist, is fond of dis- 

 cussing what he calls 'precursors' but he 

 apparently holds still to the traditional 

 supposition that different races originated 

 in Central Asia and subseqiiently spread 

 themselves to the various quarters of the 

 globe, a proposition obviously contrary to 

 all pertinent analogies of general biology. 



* That divergence as Avell as convergence has 

 occurred even in the historic period is well shown 

 by such examples as the colonists of Virginia and 

 Massachusetts who though they had formed part 

 of the same community in England developed on 

 independent lines in America until they were rein- 

 corporated into another social and political organ- 

 ization. The South African Boers might also be 

 compared with the Dutch colonists of New York. 



We are not told why one neighborhood 

 should have given rise to so much diver- 

 sity, nor why the newly formed races did 

 not fuse at once into one homogeneous 

 complex and thus save the ethnologists 

 much speculation. 



Few discussions of the evolution of man 

 are without one or more of the following 

 assumptions : 



1. That man originated at some partic- 

 ular locality. 



2. That he became differentiated into 

 three or more distinct races or varieties. 



3. The commingling of these formed the 

 numerous peoples of the earth whose 

 origins and pedigrees are to be inferred 

 by resolving their characteristics into those 

 of the component racial types, much as 

 the artist analyzes his colors or the chem- 

 ist his compounds. 



Monogenists and polygenists are about 

 equally partial to these unproved and im- 

 probable opinions, and as their differences 

 are matters of formal terms and defini- 

 tions the opportunities for scholastic con- 

 troversy are excellent. At some sufficiently 

 remote time there was a species of limited 

 distribution which included the direct pro- 

 genitor of man, but was this interesting 

 creature man or ape? And did it differen- 

 tiate intd races of men or merely into va- 

 rieties of apes or ' precursors ' which became 

 human independently and then hybridized 

 to form the complex now called man? 

 These questions can be debated indefi- 

 nitely by the well-known expedient of 

 varying the definitions which shall deter- 

 mine when the animals became men in the 

 modern sense and were no longer ' old time 

 people,' as the natives of Liberia call the 

 chimpa.nzees. 



But since no other animal or plant has 

 the Made distribution of man, we may well 

 suppose that this was attained after he had 

 far surpassed all related species in intelli- 

 gence and resourcefulness, and further 



