Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/604

598 represented in his highest attributes is entirely apart from nature, the importance of paleontology, as offering a part of the explanation of the fundamental characteristics of man, is very greatly diminished. The value of paleontology would then lie largely in an interpretation of the setting or environment in which man is developing.

With these considerations in mind, it appears of the greatest importance for us to obtain as full a history of the organic world, and as satisfactory an interpretation of the processes therein concerned, as it is possible to secure. Particularly is it desirable to have before us a clear statement of that portion of the paleontological record which leads from the higher vertebrates through the primate division to man.

One of the important phases of general paleontological work which must receive special attention is the early history of the primate order with particular reference to the development of those characteristics which are most prominent in the human family. We have, as yet, accumulated too little evidence in this field. Among the characters which must be followed would be (1) extraordinary brain development, (2) the tendency to development of an-upright position, (3) the freeing of the anterior limbs from the work of locomotion and the development in them of extraordinary adaptability. Whatever other interests one may have, there is certainly no more alluring problem than tracing from the primitive mammalia into the early primate those peculiar characters through which later on primitive man began the process of making nature subservient to himself. We may never know whether the brain actually grew large first and requisitioned the hands, so that the animal became bipedal and therefore finally erect in position, or whether a tendency to erect position was directed by the frequent assuming of a vertical position in a tree-climbing ancestor; but it is not beyond reason to presume that a thoroughly satisfactory paleontological record might give us an explanation of the origin of these characters.

The later primate history, or that which leads directly to the human type, is also unfortunately incomplete, though most remarkable advances have been made in the last few years. More missing links have already been furnished than science was supposed to require a few decades ago, but we can hardly be said to have one tenth of the material that it is desirable to have in order to show the transition from anthropoid to human, or from pithecanthropoid to the type of Spy or Neanderthal. European paleontologists are at the present time making rapid strides in filling the gaps of that portion of our ancestral chain which falls in the Quaternary system, and we may look for other important discoveries within the next decade.

It is to be presumed that the greater part of the work on the late Tertiary and Quaternary history of man will be carried on in the old world. The writer sees no reason why in this important work