297 
came into use this early loss of power could not immediately 
have been the result. Such loss would have been gradual, and 
would become, as in fact it does now, more pronounced the 
older the individual. It may be reasonably assumed, therefore, 
that at one time, even in adults, there was greater flexibility 
of these muscles than there is now in our own children ; and, if 
such were the case, our own children can only have obtained 
this loss of power by earlier inheritance. 
In savages the toes are said to be much more perfectly 
articulated than in civilised man; and this would bear out the 
argument. It would also shew that the loss of power has been 
accelerated by boots, though correlation of growth may also 
have played a part. 
Turning from the feet to the arms and hands, the remark- 
able facts recorded by Dr Robinson prove undoubtedly the 
descent of Man from arboreal quadrumana. Infants are able 
to perform a feat which, as he remarks, “ would tax the strength 
of many an adult.” This power has been gained, in my 
opinion, from adult monkey-ancestors, in accordance with the 
law of earlier inheritance: for it is presumable that when, far 
back in the phylogenetic series, monkey-like animals* first 
took to an arboreal life, their young would not have possessed 
such power as this. In course of generations, however, the 
young obtained at any rate some of this power by earlier 
inheritance. The same law would hold good in the case of 
human infants in relation to adult monkey-ancestors ; but at 
the same time, though the babies of the phylogenetic series 
have acquired this strength from their adults by the law of 
earlier inheritance, yet the reason our children retain any 
portion of this strength is due to the habits of young monkeys. 
(See page 305). 
With this strength of arm, however, there is a want of 
flexibility in the hands. In very early infancy the hands have 
a semi-clasped hook-like shape which ancestors might have 
developed from the habit of constantly grasping boughs— 
[ * Like the Lemuroidea, for instance. ] 
