THE DESCENT OF MAN 137 



sists chiefly of minute inferential proofs which hardly 

 admit of deliberate condensation. In his bodily struc- 

 ture man is formed on the same underlying type or 

 model as all the other mammals, bone answering 

 throughout to bone, as, for example, in the fore limb, 

 where homologous parts have been modified in the dog 

 into toes, in the bat into wing-supports, in the seal into 

 flippers, and in man himself into fingers and thumb, 

 while still retaining in every case their essential funda- 

 mental likeness of construction. Even the brain of 

 man resembles closely the brain of the higher monkeys ; 

 the differences which separate him in this respect from 

 the orang or the gorilla are far slighter than the 

 differences which separate those apes themselves from 

 the inferior monkeys. Indeed, as Huxley conclusively 

 showed, on anatomical grounds alone, man must be 

 classed in the order Primates as only one among the 

 many divergent forms which that order includes within 

 its wide limits. 



In his embryonic development man closely resembles 

 the lower animals, the human creature being almost indis- 

 tinguishable in certain stages from the dog, the bat, the 

 seal, and especially the monkeys. At a very early age 

 he possesses a slight projecting tail ; at another, the 

 great toe is shorter than its neighbours, and projects 

 like the thumb at a slight angle ; and at a third, the 

 convolutions of the brain reach a point of development 

 about equivalent to that of the adult baboon. In his 

 first stages man himself stands far more closely related 

 to the apes than the apes in turn stand to cats or 

 hyaenas. 



Rudiments of muscles not normally found in 

 13 



