326 PLEASANT WAYS IN SCIENCE. 



that the anthropoid apes have advanced to their present 

 condition. Judging from the appearance of the young of 

 these races, we may infer with some degree of probability 

 that these apes are the degraded representatives of more in- 

 telligent and less savage creatures. Whereas the young of 

 man is decidedly more savage in character than the well- 

 nurtured and carefully trained adult, the young of apes are de- 

 cidedly less savage than the adult The same reasoning which 

 leads us to regard the wildness, the natural cruelty, the de- 

 structiveness, the love of noise, and many other little ways 

 of young children, as reminders of a more or less remote 

 savage ancestry, should lead us to regard the comparative 

 lameness and quiet of the young gorilla, for example, as 

 evidence that in remote times the progenitors of the race 

 were not so wild and fierce as the present race of gorillas. 



But even when all such considerations, whether based on 

 the known or the possible, have been taken into account, 

 the gap between the lowest savage and the highest ape is not 

 easily bridged. It is easier to see how man may have 

 developed from an arboreal, unspeaking animal to his present 

 state, than to ascertain how any part of the development 

 was actually effected ; in other words, it is easier to suggest 

 a general hypothesis than to establish an even partial 

 theory. 



That the progenitor of man was arboreal in his habits 

 seems altogether probable. Darwin recognizes im the 

 arrangement of the hair on the human forearm the strongest 

 evidence on this point, so far as the actual body of man is 

 concerned; the remaining and perhaps stronger evidence 

 being derived from appearances recognized in the unborn 

 child. He, who usually seems as though he could overlook 

 nothing, seems to me to have overlooked a peculiarity which 

 is even more strikingly suggestive of original arboreal habits. 

 There is one set of muscles, and, so far as I know, one 

 only, which the infant uses freely, while the adult scarcely 

 uses them at all. I mean the muscles which separate the 

 toes, and those, especially, which work the big toe. Very 



