Abstract
I THINK that Prof. Giuffrida-Ruggeri has somewhat misunderstood my meaning, for naturally I have never asserted that the premaxillary element is not present in the human embryo. All I have ever ventured to state is that “it has ceased to exist as a separate entity on the human face,” and that this state of affairs is brought about remarkably early in the embryo. This I have alluded to as “a human specific character,” a specialisation from that primitive mammalian condition which is still retained in all the rest of the Simiidæ, and I see nothing illogical in assuming that the mammal which possesses this specialisation is yet more akin to the primitive mammalian condition than are those animals which, lacking this particular character, exhibit a host of other features which we know to be departures from the primitive mammalian plan. It is upon a summation of characters that we must judge of the animal's zoological position, and my point is that, when such a complete survey is made, the balance of primitive mammalian features is found in the body of man, and not in the body of the monkey. I need scarcely say that I have never “denied the affinity between man and-the Simiidæ,” but I have insisted upon a proper recognition of the differences between the anatomical structure of man and the Simiidæ.
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WOOD-JONES, F. The Problem of Man's Ancestry. Nature 101, 424 (1918). https://doi.org/10.1038/101424b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/101424b0
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