In our discussion of the third defect in the fossil “evidence,” allusion was made to a fourth, namely, its imperfect state of preservation. The stone record of bygone days has been so defaced by the metamorphism of rocks, by the solvent action of percolating waters, by erosion, weathering and other factors of destruction, that, like a faded manuscript, it becomes, even apart from its actual _lacunae_, exceedingly difficult to decipher. So unsatisfactory, indeed, is the condition of the partially obliterated facts that human curiosity, piqued at their baffling ambiguity, calls upon human imagination to supply what observation itself fails to reveal. Nor does the invitation remain unheeded. Romance hastens to the rescue of uncertain Science, with an impressive display of “reconstructed fossils,” and the hesitation of critical caution is superseded by the dogmatism of arbitrary assumption. Scattered fragments of fossilized bones are integrated into skeletons and clothed by the magic of creative fancy with an appropriate musculature and flesh, reënacting for us the marvelous vision of Ezekiel: “And the bones came together, each one to its joint. And I beheld and, lo, there were sinews upon them, and the flesh came upon them: and the skin was stretched over them.” (Chap. XXXVII, 7, 8.) “It is also true,” says Osborn (who, like Haeckel, evinces a veritable mania for “retouching” incomplete facts), “that we know the mode of origin of the human species; our knowledge of human evolution has reached a point not only where a number of links are thoroughly known but the characters of the missing links can be very clearly predicated.” (_Science_, Feb. 24, 1922.) We will not dispute his contention; for it is perfectly true, that, in each and every case, all the missing details can be so exactly predicated that the resulting description might well put to shame the account of a contemporary eyewitness. The only difficulty is that such predication is the fruit of pure imagination. Scientific reconstructions, whether in the literary, plastic, or pictorial, form, are no more scientific than historical novels are historical. Both are the outcome of a psychological weakness in the human makeup, namely, its craving for a “finished picture”—a craving, however, that is never gratified save at the expense of the fragmentary basis of objective fact.[7] [7] See Addenda.