390 THE HARMONIES OF NATURE. 



haunts, strikes them with his harpoon, or entangles them in his 

 fatal net. 



His hand is not fossorial, like that of the mole, but deep into 

 the bowels of the earth he sinks his shafts, and makes himself 

 master of her hidden treasures. With the spade and the 

 plough he loosens her surface, and forces her to pay him 

 the rich tribute of her harvests. In vain do rivers and moun- 

 tains throw their obstacles in his way he spans his bridges 

 over the stream, or drives his tunnels through the rock. In 

 vain the deeply-rooting forest strives to take possession of the 

 soil his sharp axe strikes the giants of the woods, and levels 

 them with the dust. 



And the same hand which gives him such power over the 

 remainder of creation fixes upon the canvas all the beauties 

 of Nature with a truth of colouring equal to reality itself, trans- 

 forms a rough block of marble into the divine form of an Apollo, 

 or f wakes to ecstasy the living lyre.' 



As the anterior extremities of man are adapted for prehension 

 alone, while the posterior limbs serve exclusively for support 

 and progression an organisation which belongs to him alone 



thus also he is the only mammal 

 formed for an erect attitude. 

 His head rests upon his spinal 

 column in such a manner that 

 he can maintain it in an upright 

 position for a whole day with so 

 slight and involuntary an effort 

 that no fatigue is produced 

 by it, while that of the orang, 



Human Skull. J . . . & ' 



havmg its centre of gravity in- 

 clining to the front, would require the constant action of mus- 

 cular power to keep it upright. The position of the face 

 immediately beneath the anterior portion of the cranial cavity, 

 so that its front is nearly in the same plane as the forehead, is 

 peculiarly characteristic of man; for, as we see in the adjoining 

 illustrations, the cranium of the orang is entirely posterior to 

 and not above the face. This projection of the apeish muzzle is 

 another evidence of want of adaptation to the erect posture, 

 whilst the want of prominence in the face of man shows that 

 none but the erect position can be natural to him. For, sup- 



