VERTEBRATA. 37 



the human subject. The parts composing the hand and foot are 

 disposed inversely as regards their development and importance. 

 The solid part of the hand is small, weak, and but slightly deve- 

 loped ; that of the foot is large, firm, and ossified at an earlier 

 period of life. The fingers are long, slender, and mobile; the toes 

 are short, thick, and enjoy only a limited share of motion. But the 

 distinguishing characteristic of the human hand is due to the 

 strength, situation, and development of the thumb, which is oppos- 

 able to the fingers, and rendered useful in the thousand offices 

 which it has been designed to execute. 



Man is distinguished from all other animals by the great size of 

 the cranium over that of the face. One method of expressing 

 these relative proportions, is by the course of the facial line, and 

 the number of degrees in the facial angle. A line drawn from the 

 greatest prominence of the forehead to that of the upper maxillary 

 bone, in the erect attitude, describes the direction of the face, and 

 is called the facial line ; a second line, perfectly horizontal, drawn 

 backwards from beneath the basis of the nostrils, forms with the 

 other what is termed the facial angle, and gives the measure of 

 the relative prominence of the jaws and forehead. In the adult 

 human subject the facial angle varies from 65° to 85°; in children 

 it reaches 90°; a sufficient proof of its inadequacy as a standard 

 for the measurement of intellect. The situation of the foramen 

 magnum, and occipital condyles, being but little posterior to the 

 centre of gravity, are also distinctive characters of man. Aline 

 drawn forwards parallel to the plane of the foramen magnum, will 

 come out just under the orbits. In the ourang-outang this line 

 would pass below the level of the lower jaw, and in most other 

 animals the foraman magnum is placed on the back of the head, 

 its plane being nearly vertical. The great weight of the human 

 head, the absence of ligamentum nuchas, and of the rete mirabile, 

 or some analogous provision for moderating the influx of blood to 

 the brain, coupled with other facts hereafter to be mentioned, in- 

 contestably prove that man was intended for the erect attitude, and 

 that he is quite unfit to move on all-fours, as some modern authors 

 would have it. 



Nature has clad in defensive mail the armed rhinoceros, provided 

 the lion and the ti^er with weapons of defence, clothed the sheep 

 in wool, and the bear in fur; every animal she has bountifully 

 provided in all that was necessary for its subsistence, and adapted 

 to its destined mode of existence. Man alone she has abandoned, 

 weak, naked, and defenceless, unarmed in the midst of dangers, 

 and uncovered to the winds of heaven. But she has bestowed on 

 him gifts far more than equivalent to all that was denied: she has 

 given him an illimitable capacity for improvement; she has endowed 

 him with terrestrial ubiquity, or a capability of inhabiting every part 

 of the known world: and above all, she has conferred on him in- 

 tellect and inventive genius, which have raised him to a measure- 

 less superiority over the rest of created beings. By means of these 

 endowments he has made most animals subservient to his purposes, 



