532 



The Journal of Heredity 



upon this culmination of human per- 

 fections, or cHmax of evohitionary ad- 

 vances, as writers of different penod^ 

 have judged it. Those modem authors 

 who ha\-e seen so much in the so-called 

 'attainment of the erect position' 

 (Munro) have been especially lavish in 

 their praise of the human hand as a 

 mere anatomical structure. Dr. Munro, 

 in his presidential address at the British 

 Association in 1893, pemiitted himself 

 the expression that the human hand is 

 ' the most complete and perfect mechani- 

 cal orj^an Nature has yet produced.' 

 Such a statement on the part of an 

 anatomist can only be attributed to 

 enthusiasm, and to a failure to dif- 

 ferentiate between the very primitive 

 anatomical condition of the hand and 

 the perfection of this simple mechanism 

 when linked to a human brain." 



"After 1859 [publication of the Origin 

 of Species] the forearm and hand, in 

 common with every other feature of 

 the human body, came to be regarded, 

 not as a wonderful and specially de- 

 signed structure, but as the perfected 

 products of accumulated ages of evolu- 

 tion — the last thing in animal develop- 

 ment and sjiccialization. It is no over- 

 state nent of the case to say that Man 

 was regarded by nany as the last thing 

 made, the culmination of evolution, 

 and for some opponents of the new 

 teaching and for some of its supporters 

 he was the most modern animal. The 

 orthodox chronolog}' was accepted, the 

 'highest' form was th,e last fomi made, 

 but instead of being the latest creation, 

 he was the latest evolution. Huxley 

 soon exposed the folly of this notion 

 when it was definitely brought forward 

 by an opj)onent. But though the state- 

 ment of the idea as expressed by Mr. 

 (jladstone may have been very crude, 

 and Its demolition easy by such powers 

 of argument as were Huxley's, still, in 

 more subtle guise the same idea be- 

 comes presented under many forms 

 even today, and this not b}' any means 

 necessarily from opponents of evolu- 

 tion, in such forms its refutation is not 

 always easy. In even the most rigid 

 and strictly scientific investigations in 

 comjjarative anatomy this tendency is 

 at times manifested. The human type 



of joint, or nerve, or muscle, or what 

 not is so often assumed to be the last 

 perfected — the culminatmg type. There 

 is a vague idea, which insinuates itself 

 in many ways, that the human type of 

 structure must be derived from, and 

 have passed through, stages seen in a 

 series of 'lower' animals. A foolish 

 argument may be permitted in dealing 

 with a folly. Were a horse capable of 

 writing works on comparative anatomy, 

 he would probably, and with far more 

 justice, regard his race as being the last 

 effort in evolutionary chronology, and 

 he would, and again with far more 

 justice, derive his highly specialized 

 limbs from those of some such primitive 

 form as Man." 



FOREARM IS PRIMITIVE 



In these hypothetical horse composi- 

 tions "there is no doubt that the 

 human forelimb would suffer badly. 

 Far from being regarded as the acme 

 of evolutionary processes, it would be 

 judged as an extraordinary survival of 

 a very primitive feature far into the 

 mammalian series, and more would be 

 written upon its striking similarity to 

 the corresponding member in the sala- 

 mander and the tortoise than of its 

 adaptation to the multitude of human 

 functions." 



"We have hurriedly reviewed the 

 process by which a mammal with four 

 undifferentiated and mobile limbs a- 

 chieved the emancipation of its fore- 

 limb by its climbing activities. It is 

 now necessary to make an attempt to 

 follow the changes which take place 

 in the hind limb under the same cir- 

 cumstances." The most primitive hind- , 

 limb that can be imagined is in every 

 way the counterpart of the forelimb; 

 it changes because of the fact that most 

 of the weight of the body is thrown upon 

 it in climbing. 



"The arboreal habit conferred its 

 benefits by emancipating the forelimb 

 from the duties of support and pro- 

 gression, and, by differentiating its 

 functions from that of the hindlimb, 

 it saved the animal from becoming 

 quadrupedal. In differentiating the 

 functions of the two sets of limbs, the 

 animal gains a great deal. Some ani- 



