312 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



world's productions, and drove them to take refuge in 

 such places as it did not desire to occupy. It checked 

 the increase of the races nearest itself, and kept them 

 exiled in woods and desert places, so that their further 

 development was arrested, while itself, able to spread in 

 all directions, to multiply without opposition, and to 

 lead a social life, it developed new requirements one 

 after another, which urged it to industrial pursuits, and 

 gradually perfected its capabilities. Eventually this 

 pre-eminent race, having acquired absolute supremacy, 

 came to be widely different from even the most perfect 

 of the lower animals. 



" Certain apes approach man more nearly than any 

 other animal approaches him ; nevertheless, they are far 

 inferior to him, both in bodily and mental capacity. 

 Some of them frequently stand upright, but as they do 

 not habitually maintain this attitude, their organization 

 has not been sufficiently modified to prevent it from 

 being irksome to them to stand for long together. They 

 fall on all fours immediately at the approach of danger. 

 This reveals their true origin.* 



" But is the upright position altogether natural, even 

 to man ? He uses it in moving from place to place, but 

 still standing is a fatiguing position, and one which can 

 only be maintained for a limited time, and by the aid 

 of muscular contraction. The vertebrate column does 

 not pass through the axis of the head so as to maintain 

 it in like equilibrium with other limbs. The head, 

 chest, stomach, and intestines weigh almost entirely 

 on the anterior part of the vertebrate column, and this 



* * Phil. Zool.,' torn. i. p, 343. 



