CHARACTERISTICS OF MAN. 65 



ance with their habits, concur in proving, that their movements are not easy 

 or agile, unless they employ all their limbs for the support of their bodies. 



(>7. The name Bimana is the most appropriate that could be founcl, for an 

 order constituted by the Human species only ; since Man alone is two-handed. 

 " That," says Cuvier, " which constitutes the hand, properly so called, is the 

 faculty of opposing the thumb to the other fingers, so as to seize the most 

 minute objects, a faculty which is carried to its highest degree of perfection 

 in Man, in whom the whole anterior extremity is free, and can be employed 

 in prehension." Some naturalists refuse the term hand to the extremities of 

 the Monkey tribe, preferring to call them graspers; for it is certainly true, 

 that, although usually possessing an opposable thumb, they are destitute of the 

 power of performing many of those actions which we regard as most charac- 

 teristic of the hand. These actions are chiefly dependent on the size and 

 power of the thumb ; which is much more developed in Man than it is even 

 in the highest Apes. The thumb of the Human hand can be brought into 

 exact opposition to the extremities of all the fingers, whether singly or in com- 

 bination ; whilst in those Quadrumana which most nearly approach man, the 

 thumb is so short and weak, and the fingers so long and slender, that their 

 tips can scarcely be brought into opposition, and can never be opposed in near 

 contact with each other, with any degree of force. Hence, although admirably 

 adapted for clinging round bodies of a certain size, such as the small branches 

 of trees, &c., the extremities of the Quadrumana can neither seize very mi- 

 nute objects with such precision, nor support large ones with such firmness, as 

 are essential to the dexterous performance of a variety of operations, for which 

 the hand of Man is admirably adapted. Hence the possession of " four hands" 

 is not, as might be supposed, a character which raises the animals that pos- 

 sess it above two-handed Man ; for none of these four hands are adapted to 

 the same variety of actions of prehension, of which his are capable ; and all 

 of them are in some degree required for support. In this respect, their cha- 

 racter approaches much nearer to that of the extremities of the lower Mam- 

 malia ; and there are several among them, in which the opposable power of 

 the thumb being deficient, there is no very marked distinction between the so- 

 called hand, and the foot of some Carnivora. There is much truth, then, in 

 Sir C.. Bell's remark, that "We ought to define the hand as belonging exclu- 

 sively to Man." There is in him, what we observe in none of the Mammalia 

 that approach him in other respects, a complete distinction in the functional 

 character of the anterior and posterior extremities ; the former being adapted 

 for prehension alone, and the latter for support alone. Thus each function is 

 performed with a much higher degree of perfection than it can be where two 

 such opposite purposes have to be united. The arm of the Ape has as wide 

 a range of motion as in Man, so far as its articulations are concerned ; but it is" 

 only when the animal is in the erect attitude that its arm can have free play. 

 Thus the structure of the whole frame must conform to that of the hand, and 

 must act with reference to it. But it cannot be said with truth (as some have 

 maintained), that Man owes his superiority to his hand alone; for without the 

 directing mind, the hand would be comparatively valueless. His elevated 

 position is due to his mind and its instruments conjointly; for if destitute of 

 either, mankind would be speedily extinguished altogether, or reduced to a 

 very subordinate grade of existence. 



08. Thus, then, although the order Bimana cannot be separated from the 

 order duadrumana by any single obvious structural distinction, like that which 

 characterizes the Cetacea or the Cheiroptera, it is really as far removed by the 

 minuter, but not less important modifications which have been detailed. A 

 few other distinctive characters will now be noticed. With one exception (the 

 fossil genus Anoplotherium, which is allied to the Tapir tribe), Man is dis- 



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