FROM PASSIVE TO ACTIVE ADAPTATION 209 
mental or moral, the fact remains that there is such a break 
today. Homo sapiens is a distinct species. The “ missing 
link,” the hypothetical homo alalus of Haeckel has not been dis- 
covered,! and recent paleontological finds and psychological 
experiments on extant representatives of primitive culture tend 
to show that man for possibly two hundred thousand years has 
been infinitely superior to his nearest animal progenitors.2 The 
Cro-Magnon type of the glacial period was a race of physical and 
probably intellectual giants,’ if not also the races represented by 
the Dartford skull and the Galley Hill type, and even by the 
Neanderthal type as revealed by remains found near Elberfeld, 
Germany, near Le Moustier, France, and in the Island of Jersey, 
— going back possibly from 500,000 to 1,000,000 years. It is of 
greatest significance that food and implements of war were buried 
with some of these early remains, indicating the development of 
religious ideas.‘ 
With the possible exception of the race of men represented by 
the Java skull (and it is more than questionable whether or not 
this is a normal skull, much less human), man for possibly half a 
million years has had a brain capacity indicating power of active 
adaptation, and this conclusion is strengthened by the expres- 
sion of this power in tools unearthed in geological strata of the 
Tertiary period, according to some authorities.® 
There are four methods of approach to this problem of the 
transition from passive to active adaptation. From the stand- 
point of biology and evolution we are led to inquire as to the 
organic variation or mutation, or group of such variations which 
1 Keith thinks there is some ground for believing that the Heidelberg man 
was devoid of speech; Ancient Types of Man, p. 83. Brinton, on the contrary, 
agreeing with the text, — Races of Peoples, p. 80. 
2 Angell, Chapters from Modern Psychology, Lecture VIII; Archives of Psy- 
chology, no. 11 (1908); Boas, Mind of Primitive Man, ch. IV; Keane, The World’s 
People, p. 4; Dawson, The Meeting Place of Geology and History, pp. 61 f. 
3 Keith, op. cit., ch. VII; cf. also, pp. 33 f., 83 f., 105 f. 
4 Marett, Anthropology, p. 80. 
> Cf. Keane, op. cit., p. 7. Haddon to the contrary, History of Anthropology, 
P- 94, yet he says: “ During the latter half of the paleolithic age there lived mighty 
hunters, skilful artists, big-brained men, who laid the foundations upon which 
subsequent generations have built,” zbid., p. 90. 
