CORPOREAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MAN. 9 



vered in a wild and solitary state, there is no well authenticated 

 instance of one whose progression was on all-fours. If we at- 

 tempt this mode of progression, we move either on the knee* 

 or the points of the toes, throwing the legs obliquely back to a 

 considerable distance ; we find ourselves insecure and uneasy ; 

 our eyes, instead of looking forwards, are directed to the ground \ 

 and the openings of the nostrils are no longer at the lower part 

 of the nose, in a situation to receive ascending odorous particles, 

 but lie behind it. Our inferior extremities, being of much greater 

 length, in proportion to the others and to the trunk, than the 

 posterior of brutes with four extremities, even in children in 

 whom the proportion is less, are evidently not intended to coin- 

 cide with them in movement ; they are much stronger than the 

 arms, obviously for the purpose of great support : the presence of 

 calves, which are found in man alone, shows that the legs are to 

 support and move the whole machine; the thigh bones are in 

 the same line with the trunk, in quadrupeds they form an angle, 

 frequently an acute one ; the bones of the tarsus become hard 

 and perfect sooner than those of the carpus, because strength of 

 leg is required for standing and walking sooner than strength of 

 arm and hand for labour; the great toe is of the highest import- 

 ance to the erect posture, and bestowed exclusively on mankind ; 

 the os calcis is very large, particularly at its posterior projection, 

 for the insertion of the strong muscles of the calf, and lies at 

 right angles with the leg ; we alone can rest fully upon it, and 

 in fact upon the whole of the tarsus, metatarsus, and toes. The 

 superior extremities do not lie under the trunk as they would if 

 destined for its support, but on its sides, capable of motion in 

 every direction towards objects; the fore-arm extends itself out- 

 wards, not forwards, as in quadrupeds, where it is an organ of 

 progression; the hand is fixed not at right angles with the arm, 

 as an instrument of support, but in the same line, and cannot 

 be extended to a right angle without painfully stretching the 

 flexor tendons ; the superior extremity is calculated in the erect 



As 'twas in Germany made good 

 B' a boy that lost himself in a wood, 

 And growing to a man was wont 

 With wolves upon all- four to hunt." 



Hudibras, part ii. canto i. 



