MAN AS THE TYPE OF A DISTINCT ORDER. 



posterior also ; and, indeed, the latter approach nearer the human hand, as, 

 far as the development of the thumb is concerned, than the anterior. Here, 

 again, an important difference, involving signal consequences, exists be- 

 tween Man and the Quadrumana. While the posterior extremities of the 

 Quadrumana are more powerfully prehensile, and have the thumb better 

 developed than it is on the anterior, the feet of Man are not prehensile, and 

 the whole form of the foot militates against the possession of a prehensile 

 power. The short toes, all on the same plane, the solidity of the instep, 

 and the firmness of the ankle-joint, are decided characteristics. Among 

 barbarous nations, the toes may, indeed, have more freedom than among 

 civilized people, and may be capable of hooking round small objects ; 

 but, with every allowance, the human foot is not a prehensile organ, like 

 the posterior graspers of the Monkey : * and a greater difference exists 

 between the human foot and the analogous organ of the Simiae, than 

 between the latter and the hind foot of any unguiculate animal, as the 

 Squirrel or the Dormouse. After all, it is upon modifications of one 

 great type of structure, that all the orders among the Mammalia are 

 founded : and the characters of the hands and of the feet of Man, 

 regard being had to the consequences involved by their modifications, and 

 to the increase of value attached to even the slighter variations of struc- 

 ture, as we ascend the scale, are, of themselves, sufficient to establish 

 Man's distinctive situation, as the representative of an order : for Man is 

 the only true biped among terrestrial Mammalia. Let other structural 

 peculiarities of the human frame be now compared with those of the 

 nearest anthropomorphous Simiae. 



In pages 31 and 50, representations are given- of the human skull in 

 profile, and of the skull of the Orang. Comparative views of the skulls 

 of the European and the Negro (figs. 174 and 175), on the one hand, and 



capricious ; that we may as well refuse to call the eye of the Monkey, or of the Dog, an eye, as 

 the graspers of the Monkey, hands. Not so. Were the graspers of a Monkey capable of the uses to 

 which the human hand is devoted, and fashioned, osteologically and as to the arrangement of 

 muscles, the same, we should admit the force of the objection. The paw of the Lion, the paddle of 

 the Dolphin, and the foot of the Squirrel, exhibit only modifications of the human hand ; yet we do 

 not call them hands : so the graspers of the Monkey are modifications of the human hand, adapted for 

 arboreal habits, and, therefore, more prehensile than is the paw of the Lion ; but they are not, on that 

 account (except for convenience), to be considered as hands. A simply grasping power is not the sole 

 characteristic of a hand ; else are the talons of the Eagle, and the prehensile feet of the Parrot, hands. 

 It is not, however, to the use of the term that we object, but only to the assumption, upon its use, that 

 because both Man and the Monkey have hands, they, therefore, stand in close affinity to each other. 



M. Bory de St. Vincent contends that, originally, Man had the great toe of the foot opposable 

 to the other toes, as in the Simiae ; that its loss of this power arises from the practice of wearing 

 shoes ; and that, therefore, our feet exhibit a structural degeneracy, from which the resin-gatherers 

 in the Landes of France are yet happily exempt ! It is singular that, among the naked-footed 

 savages of various countries, the great toe should have likewise lost this opposable power ; or, that 

 it should not have been perfect and undegenerate among the sandal-clad ancients, or among the 

 bare-footed Carmelites of more modern days. It is also equally strange, that M. Bory alone should 

 have observed this fortunate exemption from so universal and lamentable degeneracy, in the happy 

 natives of the Landes. 



