
THE CHIMPANZEE AND ORANG UTAN. 371 
generations to maintain the erect position ; but if we look a little further into the 
anatomy of the Orangs, a difficulty presents itself unforeseen by Lamarck. The muscle 
called fleaor longus pollicis pedis terminates, in the human subject, in a single tendon, 
and its force is concentrated on the great toe,—the principal point of resistance in 
raising the body upon the heel. In the Orang, however, the analogous muscle termi- 
nates in three tendons, which are inserted separately and exclusively in the three middle 
toes, obviously to enable these to grasp with greater force the boughs of trees, &c. It 
is surely asking too much to require us to believe that in the course of time, under any 
circumstances, these three tendons should become consolidated into one, and that one 
become implanted into a toe to which none of the three separate tendons were before 
attached. The myology of the Orangs, to which I may hereafter endeavour to direct 
more attention than it has yet received, affords many arguments equally unanswerable 
against the possibility of their transmutation into a higher race of beings. 
Certain modifications in the form of the human pelvis have been observed to accom- 
pany the different forms of the cranium which characterize the different races of man- 
kind ; but there is nothing in the form of the pelvis of the Australian or Negro which 
tends to diminish the wide hiatus that separates the Bimanous from the Quadrumanous 
type of structure in regard to this part of the skeleton. Observation has not yet shown 
that the pelvis of the Orang in a state of captivity undergoes any change approximating 
it towards the peculiar form which the same part presents in the human subject : the 
idea that the iliac bones would become expanded and curved forwards, from the pres- 
sure of the superincumbent viscera consequent on habitual attempts at progression on 
the lower extremities, is merely speculative. ; 
Those features of the cranium of the Orangs, which stamp the character of the irra- 
tional brute most strongly upon their frame, are, however, of a kind, and the result of 
a law originally impressed upon the species, which cannot be supposed to be modified 
under any circumstances, or during any lapse of time ; for what external influence 
operating upon and around the animal can possibly modify in its offspring the forms, 
or alter the size, of the deeply-seated germs of the permanent teeth? They exist before 
the animal is born, and let him improve his thinking faculties as he may, they must, in 
obedience to an irresistible law, pass through the phases of their development, and in- 
duce those remarkable changes in the maxillary portion of the skull which give to the 
adult Orangs a more bestial form and expression of head than many of the inferior Simie 
present. 
It is true that in the human subject the cranium varies in its relative proportions to 
the face in different tribes, according to the degree of civilization and cerebral develop- 
ment which they attain; and that in the more debased thiopian varieties and Pa- 
puans, the skull makes some approximation to the Quadrwmanous proportions: but 
in these cases, as well as when the cranium is distorted by artificial means or by con- 
genital malformation, it is always accompanied by a form of the jaws, and by a dispo- 
