60 HOMO V. DARWIN. 



including even the forehead and ears, is thus thickly clothed ; 

 but it is a significant fact that the palms of the hands and 

 the soles of the feet are quite naked, like the inferior 

 surfaces of all four extremities in most of the lower animals. 

 As this can hardly be an accidental coincidence, we must 

 consider the woolly covering of the fcEtus to be the rudi- 

 mental representation of the first permanent coat of hair 

 in those mammals which are born hairy." (Vol. i. pp. 25, 26.) 



Homo. I suppose, my Lord, that the palms of our hands 

 and the soles of our feet — like the inferior surfaces of all 

 four extremities in most of the lower animals — being de- 

 signed for walking or working, were not intended to be 

 covered with hair, as, in fact, they never are. But how 

 the circumstance of our resembling the lower animals in 

 this respect, can prove the woolly covering of the human 

 embryo to be the rudimental representative of the first 

 permanent hairy coat of the hairy mammals, I cannot 

 comprehend. 



Lord G. But how do you account. Homo, for this fine 

 wool-like hair, which covers you before birth ? 



Homo. My Lord, why may not man have hair upon his 

 body, both as an embryo and as an adult, without being 

 indebted for it to the lower animals ? As to accounting 

 for it, I shall be able to do so when Mr. Darwin can account 

 satisfactorily for the fine wool-like hair which covers the 

 tender shoots of many a giant tree when they first spring 

 up from the ground. 



Danvin. My Lord, " it appears as if the posterior molar 

 or wisdom-teeth were tending to become rudimentary in 

 the more civilized races of man. These teeth are rather 

 smaller than the other molars, as is likewise the case with 

 the corresponding teeth in the chimpanzee and the orang ; 



