AS APPLIED TO MAN. 349 



they both lead us to the same conclusion that some 

 other power than Natural Selection has been engaged 

 in his production. 



Feet and Hands of Man, considered as Difficulties on 

 the Theory of Natural Selection. 



There are a few other physical characteristics of 

 man, that may just be mentioned as offering similar 

 difficulties, though I do not attach the same importance 

 to them as to those I have already dwelt on. The 

 specialization and perfection of the hands and feet of 

 man seems difficult to account for. Throughout the 

 whole of the quadrumana the foot is prehensile ; and a 

 very rigid selection must therefore have been needed 

 to bring about that arrangement of the bones and 

 muscles, which has converted the thumb into a great 

 toe, so completely, that the power of opposability is 

 totally lost in every race, whatever some travellers 

 may vaguely assert to the contrary. It is difficult to 

 see why the prehensile power should have been taken 

 away. It must certainly have been useful in climb- 

 ing, and the case of the baboons shows that it is quite 

 compatible with terrestrial locomotion. It may not 

 be compatible with perfectly easy erect locomotion; 

 but, then, how can we conceive that early man, as an 

 animal, gained anything by purely erect locomotion ? 

 Again, the hand of man contains latent capacities 

 and powers which are unused by savages, and must 

 have been even less used by palaeolithic man and his 

 still ruder predecessors. It has all the appearance of 



