go PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



exercise. The effort made by the creature is at once 

 answered by that response, and whatever be the object 

 the creature wants, protoplasm automatically, instantly 

 sets to work to construct the muscle necessary and suffici- 

 ently strong and applicable for the purpose. The re- 

 sponse is always approximately proportionate to the 

 effort, so that no great excess of structure is made and 

 the principle of least action is acted upon. 



But Directivity is here most plainly discernible in the 

 results ; which Paley selected as proving, from his point of 

 view, that they were " designed ". We shift the point of 

 sight and say they were evolved. 



In his second lecture Dr. Haughton selected the 

 muscles and tendons of the feet of monkeys of the old 

 and new worlds, calling attention to a difference between 

 them correlated with their habits. Two tendons pass 

 into the palm and then branch into five for the digits. 

 In both classes the two main tendons are joined at the 

 base of the thumb (or No. i digit) and in both a tendon 

 crosses the palm from No. i into No. 5 ; the difference 

 lies in the fact that in the old world monkeys the tendon. 

 No. 2, coheres with the tendon in the thumb ; whereas it 

 is free from it in the foot of the new w^orld monkeys. 



" In the South American monkeys, best known by 

 those beautiful little capuchins, the natural action is to 

 place the first and fifth together or the first, second, third 

 and fourth. The monkey of Africa prefers to grasp with 

 the first, second and fifth toes." 



Dr. Haughton then proceeds to classify muscles as : 

 "(i) prismatic, in which the muscular fibres run parallel 

 from bone to bone ; (2) pcnniform, where the fibres 

 radiate at equal angles from a common tendinous line 

 and are inserted, of course, at each extremity into the 

 bone ; (3) triangular, where the muscular fibres proceed 



