ABSTRACT
The experimental method can find a field of application in taxonomy, and in phylogeny—the dynamic interpretation which the evolutionary concept allows to be made of the ideal classification or “natural system” provided by taxonomy. Neither variation nor selection can be adequately studied except by experiment and statistical analysis, and it is undoubtedly true that such studies as experimental genetics have vitalized the evolutionary hypothesis by providing it with a physiology. Functional characters help in revealing another, and possibly more interesting, side of the evolutionary process. It happens that man’s inclusion in the order Primates enables him to be used as a fixed point when the evolution of the group of animals is considered. C. Tate. Regan has proposed a new and very unorthodox phyletic classification of the Primates, based, almost entirely, on the straight or wavy character of the enamel prisms of the teeth.
