Chap. IV.] MANNER OF DEVELOPMENT. 133 



man are of paramount importance to him, we must not 

 underrate the importance of his bodily structure, to whicli 

 subject tlie remainder of this chapter will be devoted. 

 The development of the intellectual and social or moral 

 faculties will be discussed in the following chapter. 



Even to hammer with precision is no easy matter, as 

 every one who has tried to leam car^^entry will admit. 

 To throw a stone with as true an aim as can a Fuegian in 

 defending himself, or in killing birds, requires the most 

 consummate perfection in the correlated action of the 

 muscles of the hand, ai-m, and shoulder, not to mention a 

 fine sense of touch. In throwing a stone or spear, and in 

 many other actions, a man must stand firmly on his feet ; 

 and this again demands the perfect coadaptation of nu- 

 merous muscles. To chip a flint into the rudest tool, or 

 to form a barbed spear or hook from a bone, demands the 

 use of a perfect hand ; for, as a most capable judge, Mr. 

 Schoolcraft,"" remarks, the shaping fragments of stone into 

 knives, lances, or arrow-heads, shows " extraordinary abil- 

 ity and long practice." We have evidence of this in 

 primeval men having practised a division of labor ; each 

 man did not manufacture his own flint tools or rude pot- 

 tery ; but certain individuals appear to have devoted 

 themselves to such work, no doubt receiving in exchange 

 the produce of the chase. Archaiologists are convinced 

 that an enormous interval of time elapsed before our an- 

 cestors thought of grinding chipped flints into smooth 

 tools. A man-like animal who jjossessed a hand and arm 

 sufticiently perfect to throw a stone with precision or to 

 form a flint into a rude tool, could, it can hardly be doubt- 

 ed, with sufiicient practice make almost any thing, as far 

 as mechanical skill alone is concerned, which a civilized 



™ Quoted by Mr. Lawson Tait in his "Law of Natural Selection" — 

 'Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science,' Feb. 1869. Dr. Keller is 

 likewise quoted to the same effect. 



