LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
| FIG. | PAGE | |
| 1 | Arrangement of hair on the forearm | [42] |
| 2 | Diagrams of hair-patterns | [51] |
| 3, 4, 5 | Neck of horse, showing muscles and tendons | [53], 54 |
| 6–19 | Side of neck of various horses, showing varieties of hair-patterns | [56]–[62] |
| 20–29 | Illustrations of human eyebrows, showing muscular action and hair-direction | [70]–[73] |
| 30 | Front view of horse, showing pectoral pattern | [76] |
| 31 | Side view of horse showing hair-direction | [77] |
| 32, 32a | Frontal region of horses, showing muscles and hair-pattern | [78] |
| 33 | Side view of horse, showing chief superficial muscles | [79] |
| 34, 35 | Side and back views of cow, showing hair-patterns on back | [88] |
| 36 | Lioness, showing direction of hair-streams on muzzle | [93] |
| 37 | Back of lion, showing hair-pattern | [95] |
| 38–40 | Gluteal region, foreleg and chest of domestic dog, showing hair-direction | [99], [101] |
| 41 | Arrangement of hair on back of lemur, chimpanzee and man | [105] |
| 42 | Idem chest | [109] |
| 43 | Giraffe, showing hair-patterns of neck | [116] |
| 44 | Giraffe in attitude of drinking or browsing off the ground | [117] |
| 45 | Bongo, showing hair-patterns of chest | [119] |
| 46 | Kiang. Side view showing inguinal and axillary patterns | [119] |
| 47 | Forefoot of llama, showing hair-direction | [120] |
| 48 | Two-toed sloth, showing action of gravity on hair | [123] |
| 49 | Domestic horse, fully harnessed | [128] |
| 50 | Side view of domestic horse, showing reversed hair due to harness | [129] |
| 51–58 | Necks of various horses, showing reversed hair due to collar | [132]–[135] |
| 59 | Right hand, drawing of papillary ridges, made from impressions | [158] |
| 60 | Right foot. Idem | [160] |
| 61–70 | Hands and feet of lower animals, showing papillary ridges | [161], [163]–[166], [168] |
| 71 | Flexures on palm of right hand. Drawing made from impression | [171] |
| 72–79 | Flexures on hands and feet of various lower animals | [172]–[175] |
| 80 | Drawing of flexures of sole of foot of man, young adult | [176] |
CHAPTER I.
FROM KNOWN TO UNKNOWN
Upward—still upward—still upward to the highest! Such is the claim of modern man for the story of himself and the lower inhabitants of the globe. The zoologists have gone so far as to confer upon him the surname Sapiens—Homo Sapiens. Learned indeed he is, and heir of all the ages, but whether or not his assumed surname be warranted the doctrine of descent with modification can never again be questioned. The work of Darwin was crowned when he compelled a general acceptance of that doctrine, and now the Descent of Man and the Ascent of Man are equivalent terms for a natural process which has converted man from a thing to a person, and is the foundation of all modern thought. The biologist works secure in the knowledge that he is studying some portion of a chain of life stretching back for incalculable ages, and is not careful to produce those missing links demanded by the once formidable foes of his fundamental principle. Haeckel may announce that Pithecanthropus Erectus of Dubois is truly a Pliocene remainder of that famous group of highest Catarrhines which were the immediate pithecoid ancestors of man. This may or may not be true, but if true it makes the descent of man from a lower stock none the surer, the increasing verification of which is not found to rest on missing links.
Many of the discoveries of modern science are made by proceeding from known phenomena to the unknown, or, more precisely, from the well-known through the little-known to the hitherto unknown.
As to the validity of knowledge it is enough to say this—and pass on—all our knowledge is provisional and imperfect, and much of our ignorance is as transient as ourselves.
There are two chief ways in which historians deal with their subject-matter, though the moderns combine them. When oral tradition gives place to written records the lineal descendant of the bards and annalists collects his scanty authorities and compiles his story from them from beginning to end. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of Bede and Alfred, the Book of Howth, the works of Giraldus Cambrensis, the Chronicles of Froissart and the Memoirs of de Comines were composed in the only way that was then possible. But the muse of history entered on a deeper and more fruitful course when about ninety years ago the study of documents became an essential feature of historical work. It was then that the historian grew up, entered upon his finest inheritance and assumed his Greek title, Enquirer, Student of facts, Man of research. He is now nothing if not a man of science as well as of letters. With a wealth of documents within his reach so great that the 3239 Vatican cases full of them formed by no means the richest collection in the archives of Europe, he proceeds to read backwards correctly what many an earlier annalist read forwards falsely. “We are still at the beginning of the documentary age which is destined to make history independent of historians, to develop learning at the expense of writing, and to accomplish a revolution in other sciences as well.”[1]