124 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part I. 



arms of man are eminently characteristic structures, but 

 their muscles are extremely liable to vary, so as to re- 

 semble the corresponding muscles in the lower animals. 47 

 Such resemblances are either complete and perfect or im- 

 perfect, yet in this latter case manifestly of a transitional 

 nature. Certain variations are more common in man, and 

 others in woman, without our being able to assign any 

 reason. Mr. Wood, after describing numerous cases, 

 makes the following pregnant remark : " Notable depart- 

 ures from the ordinary type of the muscular structures 

 run in grooves or directions, which must be taken to in- 

 dicate some unknown factor, of much importance to a com- 

 prehensive knowledge of general and scientific anatomy." 48 

 That this unknown factor is reversion to a former 

 state of existence may be admitted as in the highest de- 

 gree probable. It is quite incredible that a man should 

 through mere accident abnormally resemble, in no less 

 than seven of his muscles, certain apes, if there had been 

 no genetic connection between them. On the .other hand, 

 if man is descended from some ape-like creature, no valid 

 reason can be assigned why certain muscles should not 



47 Prof. Macalister (ibid. p. 121) has tabulated his observations, and 

 finds that muscular abnormalities are most frequent in the forearms, 

 secondly in the face, thirdly in the foot, etc. 



48 The Rev. Dr. Haughton, after giving (' Proc. R. Irish Academy,' 

 June 27, 1864, p. 715) a remarkable case of variation in the human 

 flexor pollicis longus, adds: "This remarkable example shows that man 

 may sometimes possess the arrangement of tendons of thumb and fingers 

 characteristic of the macaque ; but whether such a case should be re- 

 garded as a macaque passing upward into a man, or a man passing 

 downward into a macaque, or as a congenital freak of Nature, I cannot 

 undertake to say." It is satisfactory to hear so capable an anatomist, 

 and so embittered an opponent of evolutionism, admitting even the pos- 

 sibility of either of his first propositions. Prof. Macalister has also de- 

 scribed ('Proc.R. Irish Acad.' vol. x. 1864, p. 138) variations in the 

 flexor pollicis longus, remarkable from their relations to the same muscle 

 in the Quadrumana. 



