THE UPRIGHT POSTURE 223 



lemew's as a very dangerous and unorthodox thinker 

 and teacher concerning the zoological status of Man. 

 It is certainly not so enthusiastically eulogistic as are the 

 statements of almost all who went before, and many 

 who came after him. In 1862 John Goodsir chose as 

 the subject for his summer session lectures, " The Dignity 

 of the Human Body." It is easy to picture the circum- 

 stances under which these lectures were given to the 

 students of Edinburgh University; it is easy to understand 

 the enthusiasm which Goodsir put into their composition ; 

 but it is extremely difficult to realize how the fascination 

 of such a subject could lead so competent an anatomist 

 to pen some of the extraordinary nonsense contained in 

 these lectures. It would be easy to furnish a long list 

 of quotations from the works of modern anthropologists 

 to show the enormous importance commonly assigned to 

 this matter of standing and walking upright. It would 

 be equally easy to show that, in most cases, the changes 

 which they are picturing as being produced by it are in 

 reality due to the much older climbing activities of the 

 animal. It is far more difficult to find any written word 

 of dissent from such views. 



Nevertheless Dwight made his position clear when he 

 wrote: "The upright position is certainly one of the 

 great human characteristics, but I am not carried away 

 by the enthusiasm with which some authors dilate on it." 

 Elliot Smith alludes to " the common fallacy of suj^posing 

 that the erect attitude is Man's distinctive prerogative, 

 and of regarding the assumption of that position and 

 mode of progression as the determining factor in the 

 evolution of Man." Klaatsch has asserted, with more 

 directness, that " Man and his ancestors were never 

 quadrupeds as the dog, or the elephant, or the horse." 



With this plain statement it is quite impossible to dis- 

 agree, when one studies the condition of the bones and 

 muscles of the human fore-limb. Right from that tiawn 

 period in which the Therapsida of the Triassic gave birth 



