THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



have developed. Furthermore, if the gibbon 

 descends from a tree to the ground which, by 

 the way, he does not like to do, he walks habitu- 

 ally on two legs and balances himself at the 

 same time by stretching out his arms sideways, 

 or folding them above his head, and these arms 

 of the present-day gibbon are again a new clue 

 in our research. Compared to the trunk and the 

 legs these arms are excessively long. Any com- 

 parison with man seems impossible in view of 

 these arms. No other mammal has arms of such 

 length. However, if we study the habits of gib- 

 bon life, we easily recognize their purpose. The 

 gibbon is the cleverest climber among the anthro- 

 poid apes. He is an unexcelled acrobat, thanks 

 to these arms. They represent an extreme but 

 very adequate adaptation to his special needs. 

 But when it comes to comparing him with mod- 

 ern man, these arms of the gibbon certainly 

 point away from us. The question arises 

 whether the primitive man for whom we are 

 looking could ever have had such spiderlike arms. 

 The gorilla, chimpanzee and ourang-outang also 

 have pretty long arms, but they are not nearly 

 so long, and in that respect these apes seem to 

 be much closer to man. Even a majority of the 

 lower apes, such as Macacus, and even the ba- 



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