Apes, Idiots and Men
The Mongol in our Midst. A Study of Man and his Three Faces. By F. G. Crookshank, M.D., F.R.C.P. Third
Da. Cnooasn.tsat's book first appeared in 1924 as a small volume in the well-known " To-Day and To-Morrow " series. It proved popular. A second edition was issued in the following year. In 1928, it was translated into German. In its third edition the original essay has grown into a massive work of over 500 pages.
The central figures of Dr. Crookshank's book, the mongols in our midst, are those people, born of white parents " in circumstances tending towards imperfect procreation," who show " some smack of mongolism." Often these mongoloid children are definitely imbecile, the mongolian idiots of medical text-books. But, according to Dr. Crook- shank, there are also white " mongoloids," who are in no sense imbecile, but at the most are " grown-up children," people who are different and " never quite as others." The exist- ence of this class of people, though they are marked according to Dr. Crookshank by physical signs of mongolism, is not generally admitted by students of anthropology or of medicine. For evidence that confirms his own view Dr. Crookshank accordingly refers his readers to a descrip- tion of one of her colleagues given by Miss Ellen Wilkinson, M.P., in the columns of the Evening News, to some of Low's cartoons in the Evening Standard in which Dr. Crookshank
recognizes " vacuous flappers " as mongoloid whites, and to the writings of certain journalists and novelists. Dr.
Crookshank also affirms other opinions not generally accepted by scientific observers. He claims, for instance, that there are white imbeciles who show physical characters so negroid as to justify, when considered with those who show mongoloid characters, an " ethnic classification " of idiots.
The appearance of mongolian and negroid characters in white populations forms the point de depart of Dr. Crookshank's book, the purpose of which is " to draw attention to certain homo- logies or resemblances in Nature " that hitherto have escaped general recognition. According to the author, sporadic white mongoloids—the " mongols in our midst "—closely resemble both the real mongols of Eastern Asia and the orting-utan ; white " negroid " imbeciles, the negro and the gorilla ; and dementia praecox imbeciles, Mesopotamian Semites and the chimpanzee. " From whichever angle we approach to survey the whole field. . . . three Types or Faces seem to
emerge. . . . We see in turn, each Face as borne by a Man, by an Ape, and by an Idiot."
" If," writes Dr. Crookshank, " homologies imply descent, we seem forced—logically—to assent to some polyphyletio scheme of human origins," in place of the classical mono- phyletic scheme, the view that all existing men are derived from a single ancestral stem. At the same time Dr. Crook- shank clearly states that he himself is quite prepared, after discussion, to rest content with the statement of the facts, without adopting the logic of Darwinians, who are responsible for the view that homologies imply descent.
Clearly, Dr. Crookshank is no firm believer in the doctrine of homologies. Nor would it seem that he has much faith in the pedigrees it allows one to construct. Many, sharing his views on this question, believe with him that all homologies or similarities between animals, however superficial they may seem, are nevertheless of equal importance. But even if, purely for the sake of argument, one accepts all his state- ments as indisputable, it cannot be conceded that they indicate a polyphyletic origin for man, the mongol and orang from one common ancester, the negro and gorilla from another, and the Mesopotamian Semite and the chim- panzee from a third. According to the evolutionary hypothesis, as Dr. Crookshank writes, homologies imply descent. Animals are classified by the totality of their physical similarities or homologies, and, by the principle of evolutionary succession, the relationships made are extended in meaning to imply phylogenetic kinship. It is true that the theory which Dr. Crook- shank wishes to impress is a possible one, if consideration of the evolutionary hypothesis stops here. But the study of genetics has clearly shown that new physical characters arise as " sports," and both experimental geneticists and palaeonto- logists have given proof that similar characters may crop up independently in closely allied creatures. It is this that makes all polyphyletic theories of human origins unnecessary and cumbersome. Dr. Crookshank's scheme would imply that a vast complex of physical characters developed, in a succession of sports, to produce through parallel evolution along three separate lines the same type of creature invariably recognized as man. A monophyletic scheme implies that the small group of insignificant features emphasized by Dr. Crookshank- features so insignificant that their very existence can be matter for argument—have cropped up sporadically and repeatedly in the allied zoological groups of man, the apes, and even the monkeys. Clearly the monophyletic scheme is the more likely one. At the very least it imposes much less strain upon one's imagination.
Dr. Crookshank's statements of fact • do not, however, always inspire confidence. .It is remarkable, for instance, that he is able to write that morphologically the imbecile mongoloid is like the orang; the dementia praecox like the chimpanzee, and the " Ethiopian " or " negroid " white idiot like the typical gorilla, when earlier in his book he admits that he not only lacks a " complete anatomical account of a typical ' imbecile mongoloid," but that practically nothing is known of the physical characters of the other types of idiot or of the non-imbecile white " negroids " and " mongoloids " which lie recognizes. He advises his readers to visit the Zoological Gardens to discover, as he did, " that the gorilla and chimpanzee resemble more closely the Black and the ' White ' types of humanity than they do the orang, who, in his turn, is more like the Yellow Man than either a gorilla or a chimpanzee." If they do, they will find that living apes and monkeys do
not closely fit Dr. Crookshank's descriptions. In all likelihood they will discover, as have all observers (except perhaps Dr. Crookshank), that one ape is far more like another than it is like a mongol or any other kind of man. Moreover, they will not find that " amongst the Primates, differentiation between male and female is most marked amongst the highest, and approximation is nearest amongst the lowest " to mention only one of many inaccuracies in Dr. Crook- shank's statements about apes and monkeys. His accounts of human " races " are also misleading. The book neither contains a clear definition of his concept of race, nor does it pay adequate attention to the extent to which physical characters may vary in different peoples. One finds that Dr. Crookshank has chosen the Lapps and the Mesopotamian Arabs as the purest representatives of the Yellow and " White " races. But, as no reasons are given for this choice, and as racial mixture is freely admitted elsewhere, the impression slowly grows that Dr. Crookshank's treatment of the world's popu-
lation is somewhat arbitrary. Hence it is not difficult for him to see in his alleged discovery of " scores of hundreds of mongoloids of all grades scattered through the mountainous. districts of Savoy " evidence of mongolian mixture. It is, however, impossible to discover from his book what con- stitutes a " smack of mongolism." Dr. Crookshank rejects such recorded cases of mongolism as disagree with his hypothesis, on the score that one cannot be sure that the diagnosis was correct, while he accepts others without in any way questioning their validity. He similarly treats many authorities whom he quotes on various subjects. Sonntag's observations on apes, for instance, are admitted as valid where they fit the theory, but are pushed aside, without adequate explanation, where they fail to do so. His book also contains rather too many " purely personal notions"; for instance, his view on the correlation between palm-lines and lines of conduct and his ideas about the wives of plump American business men. They add greatly to its interest, but they seem somewhat out of place in a scientific discussion.
S. ZUCKERMAN.
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