Thomas Harrison Montgomery

The Analysis of Racial Descent in Animals Thomas Harrison Montgomery

If one should limit himself to the strictly experimental method, however, he would be neglecting an enormous range of phenomena. For living organisms are in number and variety hardly commensurate with the vast assemblage of their ancestors. A re we then to leave out of consideration all this once existing life, simply because its units are no longer subject to experiment? Most assuredly not. And this is the greater part of the ground of the study of racial descent, known more concisely as phylogeny. The study of genetic relations of organisms has always impressed itself as a source of great interest, ever since the idea of the mutability of species became founded. We should not mentally separate modem organisms from those that have become extinct, and without some idealization of the latter we can form no adequate conception of the former. For all the explanations of the biologist are interpretations of genesis, whether he considers a race, an individual, a part or a habit. This study of phylogeny has come into a certain disrepute amongst superficial thinkers who imagine that there can be no certainty in its conclusions. And it must be admitted that the work of many phylogenists has been unscientific in the extreme. But one should not attack a line of research because some of its followers are at fault. One should judge rather by its positive contributions, and so doing will find that many of the broader concepts of biology have been attained from just such investigations. As to the degree of uncertainty in its conclusions, this results simply from the great extent of the phenomena to be explained and from their complexity.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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