Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/120

 musuclar development may exert an important influence on the forms of bones, but it does not seem likely that it can bring about en entire change of form. The insufficiency of the influence of environment appears in cases where populations of quite distinct types inhabit the same area and live under identical conditions. Such is the case on the North Pacific coast of our continent; such was the case in successive populations of southern California and of Utah.

While this may be considered good evidence in favor of the theory of predominance of the effect of heredity, the actual proof must be looked for in comparisons between parent and offspring. If it can be shown that there is a strong tendency on the part of the offspring to resemble the parent, we must assume that the effect of heredity is stronger than that of environment. The method of this investigation has been developed by Francis Galton and Karl Pearson, who have given us the means of measuring the degree of similarity between parent and child. Wherever this method has been applied, it has been shown that the effect of heredity is the strongest factor in determining the form of the descendant. It is true that thus far this method has not been applied for series of generations, and under conditions in which a considerable change of environment has taken place, and we look forward to a definite solution of the problem of the effect of heredity and of environment through the application of this method. In the study of past generations we cannot, on the whole, compare directly parent and offspring, but we have to confine ourselves to a comparison between the occurrence of types during successive periods. The best available evidence on this subject is found in the populations of Europe. It does not seem likely that the present distribution of types in Europe can be explained in any other way than by the assumption that heredity had a predominant influence. Much has been made of the apparent change of type that takes place in the cities of Europe in order to show that natural selection may have played