170 THE EVOLUTION OF MAN. 



zoologists. It seems very important, but is really wholly 

 unjustifiable. This was first shown in the year 1863 by 

 Huxley. Supported by very accurate Comparative Anato- 

 mical researches, he proved that Apes are as "two-handed" 

 as Men, or, conversely, that Men are as " four-handed " as 

 Apes. Huxley showed, with convincing clearness, that the 

 ideas previously held of the hand and the foot were false, 

 and were incorrectly founded on physiological instead of on 

 morphological distinctions. The circumstance that in the 

 hand, the thumb may be opposed to the other four fingers, 

 thus permitting the act of grasping, appeared especially to 

 distinguish the hand from the foot, in which the correspond- 

 ing great toe cannot be thus opposed to the four remaining 

 toes. Apes, on the contrary, can grasp in this way with the 

 hind-foot as well as with the fore-foot, and were therefore 

 regarded as four-handed. Many tribes, however, among the 

 lower races of men, especially many negro tribes, use the foot 

 in the same way as the hand. In consequence of early habit 

 and continued practice, they are able to grasp as well with 

 the foot as with the hand (for example, in climbing, they 

 grasp the branches of trees). Even new-born children of our 

 own race have a very strong grasping power in the great toe, 

 with which they can hold a spoon as fast as with the hand. 

 The physiological distinction between hand and foot can, 

 therefore, neither be strictly carried out, nor scientifically 

 established. Morphological characters must be used for this 

 purpose. 



A sharp morphological distinction of this kind — that is, 

 one founded on anatomical structure — between hand and 

 foot, between the anterior and the posterior limbs, is actually 

 possible. There are essential and permanent differences 



