476 TERM " QUADUUMANOUS," chap. xxiv. 



proportion of modern zoologists of note have rejected tlic 

 order Bimana, and have regarded Man simply as a family 

 of one and the same order, Primates. 



Term " Quadnimanous" why deceptive. 



Even the term " Quadrumanous" has lately been shown by 

 Professor Huxley, in a lecture delivered by him in the spring 

 of 1860-61, which I had the good fortune to hear, to have 

 proved a fertile source of popular delusion, conveying ideas 

 v^hich the great anatomists Blumcnbach and Cuvier never 

 entertained themselves, namel}', that in the so-called 

 Quadrumana the extremities of the hind-limbs bear a real 

 resemblance to the human hands, instead of corresponding 

 anatomically with the human feet. 



As this siibject bears very directly on the question how 

 far Man is entitled, in a purely zoological classification, to 

 rank as an order apart, I shall proceed to cite, in an abridged 

 form, the words of the lecturer above alluded to.* 



"To gain," he observes, "a precise conception of the re- 

 semblances and differences of the hand* and foot, and of the 

 distinctive characters of each, we must look below the skin, 

 and compare the bony framework and its motor apparatus in 

 each. 



" The foot of Man is distinguished from his hand by — 



" 1. The arrangement of the tarsal bones. 



" 2. By having a short flexor and a short extensor muscle 

 of the digits. 



" 3. By possessing the muscle termed jierona'us longns. 

 And if we desire to ascertain whether the terminal division 



* Professor Huxley's third lecture been embinlied with the rest of the 



" On the Motor Organs of Man com- course in his forthcoming work, cn- 



pared with those of other Animals," de- titled " Evidence as to Man's Place in 



livered in the Royal School of Mines, Niiture," Williams &, Norgate, Lon- 



in Jermyn Street (March, 1861), has dou. 



