268 THE HISTORY OF CREATION, 
quently, by most subsequent zoologists. It was not until 
1863 that Huxley, in his excellent work, the “ Evidence as 
to Man’s Place in Nature,’*® showed that this classification 
was based upon erroneous ideas, and that the so-called 
“four-handed” Apes and Semi-apes are “two-handed” as 
much as man is himself. The difference between the foot 
and hand does not consist in the physiological peculiarity 
that the first digit or thumb is opposable to the four other 
digits or fingers in the hand, and is not so in the foot, for 
there are wild tribes of men who can oppose the first or 
large toe to the other four, just as if it were a thumb. 
They can therefore use their “grasping foot” as well as a 
so-called “hinder hand,” like Apes. The Chinese boatmen 
row with this hinder hand, the Bengal workmen weave 
with it. The Negro, in whom the big toe is especially 
strong and freely moveable, when climbing seizes hold of 
the branches of the trees with it, just like the “four- 
handed” Apes. Nay, even the newly born children of the 
most highly developed races of men, during the first months 
of their life, grasp as easily with the “hinder hand” as 
with the “fore hand,” and hold a spoon placed in its | 
clutch as firmly with their big toe as with the thumb! 
On the other hand, among the higher Apes, especially the 
gorilla, hand and foot are differentiated asin man. (Com- 
pare Plate IV.) 
The essential difference between hand and foot is there- 
fore not physiological, but morphological, and is determined 
by the characteristic structure of the bony skeleton and of 
the muscles attached to it. The ankle-bones differ from 
the wrist-bones in arrangement, and the foot possesses 
three special muscles not existing in the hand (a short 
