290 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVIII. No. 459 



understand what organic evolution means, much less to bring its 

 laws into operation in an intelligent manner, so as to shape their 

 own environment thereby, to the end that they keep upon the sole 

 narrow tracli of true human progress. Improvement in education 

 and its methods; improvement in human sanitation, — wear to me 

 more and more the aspect of kinds of growths which man no more 

 possesses the power of checking than he possesses the ability to 

 stay the extinction of animals in nature, or even to arrest biologic 

 evolution its very self. 



The lesson taught us by the half-tried experiment in human 

 stirpiculture by the Oneida Community was not, or rather should 

 not be, entirely thrown away, nor do I believe that that experi- 

 ment proved to be altogether a failure. To test its worth as a 

 mode of race improvement it should be tried upon a much larger 

 scale, in the fuller light of our more advanced scientific knowledge, 

 and with the element of artificial selection not left out. 



On the other hand, I cannot agree with our distinguished savant 

 Professor Joseph Le Conte when he says that "if we are to have 

 any race-improvement at all, the dreadful law of destruction of 

 the weak and helpless must, with Spartan firmness, be carried out 

 voluntarily and deliberately" {The Monist, vol. i., No. 3, Apr , 

 1891, p. 334) ; for I believe that it requires but a rigid enforcement 

 of a law that will prevent the marrying of such individuals or 

 their reproducing their kind at all, to soon bring about the desired 

 result. While civilized man may be "making his own environ- 

 ment," he certainly is not taking any rational steps at present to 

 improve the race in that direction, — one of the most important of 

 all. In ages to come I have an idea that such matters will be sci- 

 entifically dealt with, and they were in my mind when I discussed 

 the "man of the future" in my letter to Science, whereas Mr. 

 Snell was surely dealing with the man of the present when he re- 

 marked upon this aspect of the case, that "the plan is fraught 

 with collateral difHculties, and, even if these could be overcome, 

 it seems to be.forever out of the question, on account of the m''ral 

 impossibility of obtaining for it, under any conceivable circum- 

 stances, the sanction of public opinion " (p. 259). And, assuredly 

 with the maj of the past when, in taking exception to my predic- 

 tion of the abolition of war, he makes the some what isolated state- 

 ment that " Chateaubriand, in his pamphlet ' De Bonaparte et des 

 Bourbons,' calculated that more lives had been lost during the Na- 

 poleonic wars than during the whole of the Middle Ages through- 

 out all Christendom." 



That long and destructive wars are gradually becoming less 

 and less frequent seems to me to bs but a matter of comparative 

 history. National differences are now often adjusted without re- 

 sort to bloodshed, which only a century or more ago would most 

 certainly have given rise to a resort to arms. In short, warism 

 and all tliat pertains to it is a relic of savagery, and with savagery 

 must, in time, disappear. 



The realization of this prediction, taken in connection with the 

 disajjpearance of widespread and fatal epidemics of disease, which 

 are likewise" becoming less and less frequent, must ot necessity 

 have a powerful influence on the man of the future. By their 

 elimination the world will certainly be more thickly and more 

 quickly peopled with the -human specie^. Mr. Snell has said 

 nothing in his communication that has had a tendency to alter 

 my opinion in reference to the destruction of the world's fauna 

 and much of its present flora. I cannot conceive that " any por- 

 tion of the flora or fauna of the globe which has even a pic- 

 turesque or decorative value" as now existing, is destiaed to be 

 seen by the " man of the future," and alone represents the share 

 which is not doomed to be destroyed. Possibly your correspond- 

 ent would have me believe that some time in the future the day 

 will arrive when all the habitable part of the globe will have been 

 converted into one continuous, immense park, combined with 

 biological preserves and enormous areas of dwellings and other 

 habitations for the men of the future ! It depends very much 

 what is meant by the expression "picturesque or decorative 

 value," for to my mind biologic, and in face of the geological 

 history of the world as now known to us, such an outcome is 

 simply out ot the question. To me, for example, there is no 

 doubt but that the present existing avifauna of the world, or 

 rather the entire group of those now highly specialized forms we 



call birds, are destined to become utterly extinct in nature in the 

 future history of the earth, and yet they certainly possess a cer- 

 tain " decorative value." The largestor larger forms will first dis- 

 appear, to be followed gradually by all those of less and lesser 

 size. Our own avifauna is amply illustrative of this fact. 



My critic said much in the leading paragraphs of his long com- 

 munication that pleased me greatly; I refer especially to his re- 

 marks upon the growth of education; upon questions ethical and 

 metaphysical; upon problems social and psychological, and upon 

 morals; but I confess to my utter disappointment when I came 

 to read further along in his article that he entertained such no- 

 tions as "neither our senses nor our memories are as acute as 

 those of our barbarian ancestors; our taste and capacity for intel- 

 lectual speculation is not as great as was possessed by our prede- 

 cessors of the scholastic period, or by the South Asiatic Aryans of 

 any historic time;" and finally the statement, so tinctured with 

 pessimism, that " the low vice of avarice rules the day." Were 

 these statements true for the present hour, there could hardly be 

 any doubt as to what some of the characteristics of the man of 

 the future must be. 



Mr. Snell unconditionally surrenders both sword and pen when 

 he concludes by saying, "I cannot venture, in view of the com- 

 plexity of the problem, to hazard a prediction even for the next 

 stages ot human evolution, to say nothing of the millions of years 

 over which Dr. Shufeldt so gaily gambols." Why, human " evo- 

 lution" is the very pith of the question we are considering, and 

 we biologists believe that we have so far solved the riddle of the 

 origin of life upon earth, and the growth and development of ani- 

 mal and vegetable forms since, and the laws that control the 

 same, that it is quite a pardonable thing for us to do, even if it 

 be of "doubtful utility," to forecast the fate of any vertebrated 

 animal, man not excepted, into the future. A nineteenth century 

 biologist, such as I am, is not likely to take umbrage at being 

 chai'ged with "gambollmg over millions of years." for I am be- 

 come already callous to the charge of " gambolling " too many 

 millions of years in the other direction, or into the ^asf, in seek- 

 ing into the question of the origin of man there. Indeed, I take 

 no little pride in the fact that during the last ten years I have 

 from time to time, as far as my poor ability would allow me, lent 

 both my voice and pen to the view that man arose upon earth at 

 a far remoter period in its history than a few thousand years 

 amount to, as many eminently good people would yet have us to 

 believe. E. W. Shufeldt. 



Takoma, D.C., Nov. 17. 



The International Geological Congress. 



The month of August, 1891, witnessed a remarkable gathering 

 of scientific bodies at the capital. No less than nine organizations 

 engaged in pursuits of a scientific character met in convention 

 in Washington. From the 10th of August to the 3d of September 

 the following bodies held meetings, partly successive and partly 

 contemporaneous: the ATnerican Microscopical Society; the Asso- 

 ciation of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Sta- 

 tions ; the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists ; the Society 

 for the Promotion of Agricultural Science; a conference of Ameri- 

 can chemists, with the Washington Chemical Society ; the Asso- 

 ciation of Economic Entomologists; the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science; the Geological Society of America; 

 and the Fifth International Congress of Geologists. 



As one who enjoyed the privilege of attending and participating 

 in the three last-named gatherings, I have brought together a few 

 memoranda of S'jme of the many points of interest connected 

 therewith, especially in the department of geology. 



The Association for the Advancement of Science, instead of con- 

 tinuing for a week, as its custom has been, closed its fortieth 

 session on Saturday, Aug. 23, and gave up the Monday and Tues- 

 day following to the American Geological Society. During the 

 year previous, death had removed from the list of American geol- 

 ogists three eminent names, — E. W. Hilgard, Joseph Leidy, and 

 Alexander Winchell, the last of whom was the president of the 

 society for the year. The opening paper was a beautiful tribute 

 to his work and worth, by his brother, Professor N. H. Winchell 

 of Minneapohs. 



