ORIGIN OF OUR HANDS AND BACKBONE 555 



on a man's shoulder blades. The wings of the typical 

 church-window angel, being devoid of supporting mus- 

 cles, would trail behind 

 like a woman's skirts 

 in the mud. They 

 would not only be of 

 no use, but a great 

 encumbrance. They 

 would hang limply 

 down the angel's back, 

 bumping against its 

 heels and dragging on 

 the ground as it 

 walked, but angels' 

 wings as a symbol of 

 a being's power to tra- 

 verse space are, like 

 those little ones at- 

 tached to the hat and 

 heels of Mercury, per- 

 fectly proper. The 

 old masters may not 

 themselves have been 

 ignorant of the ele- 

 mentary principles of anatomy when they painted angels' 

 wings on the shoulder blades, and they were probably 

 doing the same as modern artists are doing to-day, ac- 

 cepting the ancient idea of an angel, and reproducing 

 it as we do that absurd monster, the centaur. 



