BON.

by blood tests, osteology and morphology; these characters are strikingly pro-human, and anatomists have dwelt on them to the exclusion of others not human. Between man and the ape-not only the hands and feet of the ape, but the ape as a whole, including its psychology-you will find more differences than resemblances. In brief, man has a bipedal, dexterous, wide-roaming psychology; the ape has a quadrupedal, brachiating, tree-living psychology.

The term "ape-man" has been forced into our language along a number of lines, and even the term "anthropoid" has come to lose its significance. "Apeman" has gained prestige through early explorers and travelers who represented the anthropoid apes as walking on their hind feet. We have since discovered that no anthropoid ape walks upright; the gibbon balances himself awkwardly when he comes down from the trees, but all the other apes are practically quadrupedal in motion, except possibly in defense, when

they rear as a horse would rear. We may therefore eliminate the early descriptions in forming our notions of the anthropoids. A parallel to the misuse of the word "ape-man" would be this: the horse, ass and zebra are so closely related that unless one examines very carefully one can not tell the skeletons apart; they agree more closely than do the anthropoid apes and man. But when we study the habits of the horse, the ass and the zebra we find that each has a totally different psychology: the horse has a forest psychology, the ass has a desert psychology, the zebra has an open-plains psychology. The horse is a splendid swimmer, whereas the mule-a cross between the horse and the ass-has the ass psychology and is afraid of water. It is no more proper to speak of the common ancestor of the apes and of man as "apeman" than it is to call the common ancestor of the horse and the ass an "ass-horse." Another instance of wide psychic difference between like animals is

that of the black and the white rhinoceros of Africa, which have a very dissimilar psychology and react differently in every emergency.

EMPIRE OF THE LOW-BROWED NEANDERTHAL RACES We may class together as Neanderthaloid all the prehistoric races with prominently projecting supraorbital processes; with low, retreating foreheads; with correspondingly low, broad type of brain, especially with low forebrain in contrast with the relatively high forebrain of the Piltdown and of modern races; with massive jaw and retreating chin of the Heidelberg and true Neanderthal type. The increasing brain power of these Neanderthaloids during Pleistocene time is perhaps measured by contrast between the Trinil brain of 940 cubic centimeters and the most highly developed Neanderthal brain of 1,530 cubic centimeters. The psychology of this race is further revealed by the prevailing type of flint implement, of offense and defense, of the chase and in the preparation of food. The first of these great Neanderthal flint types is found in the Cromer deposits in East Anglia-tremendous flint implements used largely in combat. Over an enormously prolonged period these implements passed through Cromerian, pre-Chellean, Chellean, Acheulean and, finally, Mousterian stages, wherein they begin to show decadence and loss of virility, together with invasion of other types of implements.

The great Neanderthaloid race, with its characteristic stone culture, apparently dominated North Africa and all of Europe and extended eastward into the heart of Asia. Its quarries and camping grounds increase in number as Pleistocene time goes on, and an eastward to southward spread may be represented in the recent discoveries of Mousterian camping sites in Ordos, China, and of a Neanderthaloid skull, which has been named the Rhodesian skull, at Broken Hill Mine, South Africa. The animal life contemporaneous with this race is well known; it included a large variety of elephants, chiefly of the southern and straight-tusked types, rhinoceroses and, in the lower lands, hippopotami. This is known as a South Temperate fauna adapted to rather fertile lands, river bottoms and abundant forests. In such an environment game was so plentiful that there was relatively little struggle for existence, hence there was little incentive to the development of a diversified flint industry. Superior intelligence was not demanded and it is therefore surprising that under these circumstances the Neanderthal brain attained the dimensions which threw even the genius of Huxley off the track as to the very primitive character of this race. Taken altogether, the widely extending range of the Neanderthaloid races is one of the most firmly established facts of

prehistory. If our geologic time scale is reliable, it extended over a period of 900,000 years, and if our present records of quarry grounds and implements are reliable, the Neanderthals had almost exclusive possession of an enormous territory.

THEORY OF THE NORTH EURASIATIC ORIGIN OF THE HIGH-BROWED RACES

It was formerly believed by certain anthropologists that the Neanderthals were the progenitors of the succeeding higher races, but in my opinion we may entirely abandon this theory and substitute a theory of the complete replacement of the Neanderthal empire by invading races that had acquired superior intelligence under entirely different conditions of life. In other words, while the Neanderthals were enjoying exclusive possession of Central Europe, Asia and a large part of Northern Africa and were spreading southward into Rhodesia, the progenitors of all the modern races were occupying another great area, under conditions of life in which the struggle for existence was much more severe and in which there were far greater demands upon the native wit of man to overcome natural difficulties by invention and resourcefulness.

This unexplored territory, the unknown homeland of the higher races of man, can not be south of the Neanderthal Eurasiatic belt, because to the south conditions of life were less rigorous, food was more easily obtained, and the milder sub-tropical climate was less stimulating to discovery and invention. In this southern, less stimulating region of Eurasia may have survived the persistent Trinil race of Java and other primitive races still undiscovered. To the south, in Africa, may also have developed Negroid stock under Central African conditions of life that must closely parallel those of Central and Southern Eurasia during the great Neanderthal period.

Consequently, it is to the northern regions of Eurasia that we must look for the unknown homeland of the higher races, to a temperate and north temperate region which extended along the northern borders of the Neanderthal empire over the high central plateau region of Asia, over the great plains region to the north of the central plateau and, finally, over the confines of eastern Europe. It may be laid down as a fixed principle in the rise of the intelligence of man that only when the struggle for existence is fairly keen does any race progress; when the struggle for existence is too severe the entire life is devoted to physical support, to the exclusion of intellectual and social progress.

The new modern races, pure and blended- Mediterranean long-heads, Alpine broad-heads, blended Cro-Magnons, Nordics-apparently moved eastward

over this northerly plateau and plains region and finally subdued the entire Central Eurasiatic empire of the Neanderthals. These new races were not only distinguished by large brains and by equal powers of observation, of reasoning, of design, of tool-making, and of social, moral and political organization, but were also endowed with higher intellectual, spiritual and creative faculties which gave them both physical and intellectual supremacy over the Neanderthals and led to their entire occupation of western Europe. First, to measure their capacity purely by the cube of their brain, let us place these nearly arrived races in order of brain power with the existing races, high and low:

The Cro-Magnons, who have been termed the Palaeolithic Greeks, rank extremely high in their cubic brain capacity; they entered Europe side by side with the pure long-headed and broad-headed races, also of high brain power, and are now considered to represent a blend between long-heads and broad-heads. Imagine the enormously long period of time during which this very high modern brain power developed and consider through the astonishing industry and diversified art of these people that every faculty has its cerebral equivalent and ancestry for each of its several coefficients. The extreme accuracy of observation of animal form displayed by the Cro-Magnons is not the result of hundreds of years, but of hundreds of thousands of years.

It is possible that the Piltdown race of Upper Pliocene time with its 1,070 ccm. brain cube is an offshoot of the precociously large-brained stock that gave rise to the group of modern races-Australoid, Negroid, Mongoloid, Caucasian. Yet the Piltdown race has a chimpanzee or anthropoid ape type of jaw. It seems a very hazardous prediction, but I am inclined to anticipate the discovery, even in Pliocene time, of a modernized type of jaw with prominent chin. This is against all existing evidence, with the exception of the dubious Foxhall jaw with its prominent chin, for all the known Pliocene and early Pleistocene races

have a sloping chin or less remotely resemble the anthropoid ape type.

CONCLUSION

Let us therefore conclude with consideration of the ancestry of man according to the modified concept of "dawn men," not "ape-men." In the first place, over an incredibly long period of time the Dawn Men have been tool-makers, of high adaptability and wonderful technique. We have then a biped, a being with a hand capable of grasping and controlling tools, a tool-maker with as fine a sense of touch as that of any of the present-day etchers, engravers and artists. In my opinion, the pro-man psychology, leaving out the evidence of anatomy and morphology, is certainly that of a Dawn Man and not of an "ape-man." I agree with my colleagues that man passed through an arboreal stage, but I believe that this stage did not progress so far as to carry man into a stage approaching that of the anthropoid apes. Dollo has stated the law of the irreversibility of evolution. The brachiating hand of the ape was used as a hook-apes do not grasp a branch with the fingers and thumb but hook the whole hand over the branch, as trapeze workers do to-day-and the thumb was therefore a grave danger. If man had gone through a prolonged period of brachiating in the branches of trees he would have lost his thumb. I agree to putting our arboreal ancestors back to Eocene time, but I predict that even in Upper Oligocene time we shall find pro-men, and if we find Oligocene pro-man-in Mongolia, for example that he will have pro-human limbs, not proanthropoid ape limbs.

Of all incomprehensible things in the universe man stands in the front rank, and of all incomprehensible things in man the supreme difficulty centers in the human brain, intelligence, memory, aspirations, and powers of discovery, research and the conquest of obstacles. The approach to this unknown field of future human advance-the seat of the human mind and the constitution of the human mind-is along the great paths of human and comparative anatomy and of human and comparative psychology and behavior. Yet this approach will yield only a tentative conclusion; the final solution of this problem of problems-the rise of man-will come only through unremitting exploration and the chance finding somewhere in the Eurasiatic continent of actual fossil remains of the Oligocene pro-man, of the Miocene and Pliocene Dawn Man and, finally, of the early Pleistocene ancestors of the large-brained modern races.

HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

NOMENCLATURAL EFFICIENCY

THE economic bearings of nomenclature have been touched upon by Prof. C. W. Stiles, of the U. s. Public Health Service, in the issue of SCIENCE for February 25. No one can take exception to his plea for greater efficiency in nomenclature or to his suggestion that students be given instruction in regard to such matters.

It seems fitting in this connection to briefly summarize present conditions. Our system was proposed by Linnaeus, and doubtless in his day he was regarded as something of a nomenclatural heretic. The system has rendered admirable service and at the time it was proposed met every reasonable need. In those days, general zoologists were doing most of the work, describing species, building up nomenclature and all possessed a somewhat comprehensive viewpoint of the situation as a whole. To-day so far as active contribution to nomenclature is coneerned, the general zoologist exercises a comparatively small influence and is mostly limited to passing upon questions of priority, general validity and taxonomic values with occasional dissertations upon the necessity of deriving generic names from the Greek and expressions of dissatisfaction at departures from this somewhat well-established procedure. The genera of the present day, the fundamental units in our system, are being proposed in large numbers mostly by specialists, some of whom at least are more concerned in securing diversity than in the effect the name proposed may have upon classification as a whole. In other words, the rather inexperienced men in general nomenclature are making most of the additions, while zoologists as a whole ignore the ascendency of the specialist, something entirely unsought in most cases, and insist that all generic names must be considered as a part of a large unchangeable whole in a world where stability is unknown. The law of priority is invoked as the stable feature of the system, and no restrictions whatsoever are laid upon the proposer of new names, save that he must see or think that he sees some form worthy of generic rank. Any combination of letters, significant or otherwise, short, long or unreasonable polysyllabic conglomerations are all acceptable, provided they have not been duplicated by any one else throughout the entire zoological series. There are cases where naturalists have proposed extremely long names simply to lessen the probability of creating a homonym, and in some instances the selection of a generic name has been prompted by a sense of satire rather than consideration for the system as a whole. This uncontrolled and to a certain extent irresponsible extension of nomenclature has continued for 175

years with little suggestion as to changes for the better, in the larger sense, at least.

It must be admitted at the outset that nomenclature is not an end in itself. It is presumably an aid to classification and therefore efficiency in the broadest possible sense should be the chief criterion. The system was not created to honor earlier workers, even though they have made large and valuable additions to knowledge as a whole. Nomenclature is not an exercise in Greek or a test for memory; it is or should be a tool to assist in the ready placement of the long series of species with which the naturalist is compelled to deal. With this clearly in mind, and remembering also that a very large proportion of our concepts, which we instinctively associate with generic names, are based almost entirely upon association, and to a very slight extent upon the significance of the name itself, we may well inquire whether our system of nomenclature is the efficient tool that it might be, and whether it is a credit to the organizing ability and acumen of the zoologists who have been responsible for its development. This is not a reflection upon earlier taxonomists. It is simply a statement of facts deserving most careful consideration.

The system is faulty in a number of respects. We would emphasize the following points in a summary of present conditions:

(1) The long and constantly increasing series of generic names, now some 160,000, possess little definitive value in themselves.

(2) Dependence for taxonomic significance in generic names is largely upon the position of the name in the systematic list or other work of a general character.

(3) A scrutiny of generic lists shows thousands of homonyms, many of which should have been avoidable.

(4) Zoologists generally have failed to take advantage of the superior classifying and placing value of the initial syllables in names.

(5) The short prefixes have been grossly abused by indiscriminate, unintelligent use.

(6) There has been no serious attempt, aside from a few proposals to be mentioned below, to take advantage of the possibilities of comprehensive placing systems.

(7) Zoologists as a whole have invoked the law of priority as the one stable feature in a system where stability is impossible, though recognition of priority is decidedly helpful.

(8) We have an exceedingly complex system to which nearly unrestricted, unregulated additions are made by practically independent workers throughout the world.

A very curious condition prevails at the present time. There is a general feeling that our system of nomenclature is stable, is satisfactory and should not be modified on account of the ill effects following any such change, and yet most scientists are changing generic concepts with their transfer of species, reerecting under the law of priority older and forgotten names, and our International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature is wrestling with very abstruse problems and issuing from time to time official lists of generic names, which may remain in an accepted class for a decade, generation or longer. The relation between problems solved and those created is possibly one to ten. We are trying, as it were, to swim up stream against a strong current. The situation is such that some economic entomologists at least have felt that the despised and supposedly unstable common names were more reliable than the presumably superior scientific names, which have from time to time been applied to economic species. There is not a more instructive work for the man interested in nomenclature than Sherborn's "Index Animalium," with its lists of hundreds of species referred to various genera in earlier years and now widely scattered under other designations. Only a glance is sufficient to suggest the enormous amount of time which has been spent working out synonymy and referring these various species from genus to genus. It is the opinion of the writer that more time has been spent upon this relatively useless and to a large extent avoidable activity than would have been necessary to recast our entire system of generic names in a logical manner to accord with modern methods of classification or placing devices.

No one can deny the value of regulated diversity, provided it does not place intolerable restrictions upon individual workers. Why not recognize the fact that we are at present traveling toward greater confusion and loss of efficiency simply because, following the law of inertia, we have held that the methods of a hundred years ago are "good enough" and no one has dared to tackle this large proposition in a comprehensive manner? Should we not recognize the situation as it is and endeavor to find a practical solution for present difficulties? Some blame the inadequacy of our nomenclatural system upon the diversity of life itself and in a measure admit their inability to reach a successful solution.

Think for a moment of the opinion we would form if a business or political unit were to establish a comprehensive classification, and then turn it over without restriction to subordinates in all parts of the world. Chaos would speedily result, unless the organization maintained a certain measure of supervision, and if one were to go into business houses,

he would be very apt to find a system of letters or numerals imposing a fairly accurate classification upon the various branches of the business. Compare the above with our present system or lack of system! No one to-day advocates the methods of one hundred or two hundred years ago in transportation, communication and the like, and why should we assume that a change for the better can not and should not be made in relation to nomenclature?

The practical advantages of systematically diversified generic names are indicated by the somewhat general employment in various groups of short and characteristic combinations as suffixes, and occasionally as prefixes, for related genera. For example, among the mammals there are some 348 genera with the combination mys, mouse, and 268 with nycteris, bat, and in insects a number of similar cases may be readily cited, such as thrips in 256 genera; termes in 121 genera; diplosis in over 100 and psylla or psyllus in some 99 genera. Similarity in generie names for related forms is certainly a great assistance, and the unfortunate condition in relation to those listed above, and numerous others to be found throughout the entire animal series, is that they have not been systematically applied.

The need of systematic diversity in our zoological names has been recognized by various individuals, and several proposals have been made, none of which have been adopted, largely on account of the conservative attitude toward changes in nomenclature, and presumably in some instances at least on account of the new methods not solving the problems in a satisfactory manner. One of the earliest was that of Professor Harting1 in which he proposes a system of class suffixes combined with ordinal prefixes. The use of letter formulae for kingdom, phylum, class, order and genus and numerals for species was proposed by Tornier2 for both animals and plants. The use of prefixes and suffixes for the ready placing of generic names of animals and plants was proposed by Herrera3 and a series of initial letters for classes and ordinal prefixes and ordinal prefixes by Rhumbler.* Jonathan Dwight, Jr., and Professor James G. Needham both make pleas for a more logical nomenclature. Dr. Heikertinger gives a somewhat extended discussion of the possibilities of prefixes and suffixes. A more recent and in certain respects, at least, a more com

5

1 Archiv. f. Naturgesch., 1: 26–41, 1871.

2 Zoologischer Anzeiger, 21: 575-580, 1898. 3 SCIENCE, 10: 120-121, 1899.

4 Zoologischer Anzeiger, 36: 453-471, 1910.

5 SCIENCE, 30: 526-527, 1909.

6 SCIENCE, 32: 295-300, 1910.

▾ Zoologischer Anzeiger, 47: 198-208, 1916; 50: 41-54, 299-302, 1918-1919.