XV 
DARWINISM APPLIED TO MAN 
447 
and this property has been proved, in one case, to be inherited. 
In the outer fold of the ear there is sometimes a projecting point, 
corresponding in position to the pointed ear of many animals, 
and believed to be a rudiment of it. In the alimentary canal 
there is a rudiment—the vermiform appendage of the caecum— 
which is not only useless, but is sometimes a cause of disease 
and death in man; yet in many vegetable feeding animals it 
is very long, and even in the orang-utan it is of considerable 
length and convoluted. So, man possesses rudimentary bones 
of a tail concealed beneath the skin, and, in some rare cases, 
this forms a minute external tail. 
The variability of every part of man’s structure is very 
great, and many of these variations tend to approximate 
towards the structure of other animals. The courses of the 
arteries are eminently variable, so that for surgical purposes 
it has been necessary to determine the probable proportion of 
each variation. The muscles are so variable that in fifty cases 
the muscles of the foot were found to be not strictly alike in 
any two, and in some the deviations were considerable; while 
in thirty-six subjects Mr. J. Wood observed no fewer than 558 
muscular variations. The same author states that in a single 
male subject there were no fewer than seven muscular varia¬ 
tions, all of which plainly represented muscles proper to various 
kinds of apes. The muscles of the hands and arms—parts 
which are so eminently characteristic of man—are extremely 
liable to vary, so as to resemble the corresponding muscles of 
the lower animals. That such variations are due to reversion 
to a former state of existence Mr. Darwin thinks highly prob¬ 
able, and he adds : “ It is quite incredible that a man should, 
through mere accident, abnormally resemble certain apes in 
no less than seven of his muscles, 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 suddenly reappear 
after an interval of many thousand generations, in the same 
manner as, with horses, asses, and mules, dark coloured 
stripes suddenly reappear on the legs and shoulders, after 
an interval of hundreds, or more probably of thousands of 
generations.” 1 
1 Descent of Man, pp. 41-43 ; also pp. 13-15. 
