30 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



there is nearly as much diversity in the teeth as in the feat- 

 ures. The chief arteries so frequently run in abnormal 

 courses, that it has been found useful for surgical purposes 

 to calculate from 1040 corpses how often each course pre- 

 vails.* The muscles are eminently variable : thus those of 

 the foot were found by Prof. Turner f not to be strictly 

 alike in any two out of fifty bodies ; and in some the de- 

 viations were considerable. He adds, that the power of 

 performing the appropriate movements must have been 

 modified in accordance with the several deviations. Mr. 

 J. Wood has recorded \ the occurrence of 295 muscular 

 variations in thirty-six subjects, and in another set of the 

 same number no less than 558 variations, those occurring 

 on both sides of the body being only reckoned as one. In 

 the last set, not one body out of the thirty-six was '^ found 

 totally wanting in departures from the standard descrip- 

 tions of the muscular system given in anatomical text 

 books. ''^ A single body presented the extraordinary num- 

 ber of twenty-five distinct abnormalities. The same mus- 

 cle sometimes varies in many ways : thus Prof. Macalister 

 describes no less than twenty distinct variations in the 

 palmaris accessorius. 



The famous old anatomist, Wolff, || insists that the inter- 

 nal viscera are more variable than the external parts: NuUa 

 'particula est qum non aliter et aliter in aliis se liabeat 

 homi7iil)us. He has even written a treatise on the choice 

 of typical examples of the viscera for representation. A 

 discussion on the beau-ideal of the liver, lungs, kidneys, 

 etc., as of the human face divine, sounds strange in our 

 ears. 



The variability or diversity of the mental faculties in 

 men of the same race, not to mention the greater differ- 

 ences between the men of distinct races, is so notorious that, 

 not a word need here be said. So it is with the lower ani- 

 mals. All who have had charge of menageries admit this 

 fact, and we see it plainly in our dogs and other domestic 



* "Anatomy of the Arteries," by R. Quain. Preface, vol. i, 1844. 

 f " Transact. Royal Soc. Edinburgh," vol. xxiv, pp. 175, 189. 

 X " Proc. Royal Soc," 1867, p. 544 ; also 1868, pp. 483, 534. There 

 Is a previous paper, 1866, p. 229. 



"Proc. R. Irish Academy," vol. x, 1868, p. 141. 

 I " Act, Acftd. gt. P^tersbur^," 1778, part ii, p. 217. 



