2(5 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



hov/ often each course prevails.' The muscles are eminently 

 variable: thus those of the foot were found by Prof: Turner* not 

 to be strictly alike in any two out of fifty bodies; and in some 

 the deviations were considerable. He adds, that the power of per- 

 forming the appropriate movements must have been modified in 

 accordance with the several deviations. Mr. J. Wood has recorded' 

 the occurrence of 295 muscular variations in thirty-six subjects, 

 and in another set of the same number no less than 558 variations, 

 those occurring on both sides of the body being only reckoned as 

 one. In the last set, not one body out of the thirty-six was 

 "found totally wanting in departures from the standard descrip- 

 "tions of the muscular system given in anatomical text books." 

 A single body presented the extraordinary number of twenty-five 

 distinct abnormalities. The same muscle sometimes varies in 

 many ways: thus Prof. Macalister describes" no less than twenty 

 distinct variations in the palmarls accessorius. 



The famous old anatomist, Wolff,' insists that the internal 

 viscera are more variable than the external parts: Nulla parti- 

 cula est quae non aliter et aliter in allis se habeat hominibus. He 

 has even written a treatise on the choice of typical examples of 

 the viscera for representation. A discussion on the beau-ideal 

 of the liver, lungs, kidneys. Sec, as of the human face divine, 

 sounds strange in our ears. 



The variability or diversity of the mental faculties in men of 

 the same race, not to mention the greater differences between 

 the men of distinct races, is so notorious that not a word need 

 here be said. So it is with the lower animal's. All who have had 

 charge of menageries admit this fact, and we see it plainly in our 

 dogs and other domestic animals. Brehm especially insists that 

 each individual monkey of those which he kept tame in Africa 

 had its own peculiar disposition and temper: he mentions one 

 baboon remarkable for its high intelligence; and the keepers in 

 the Zoological Gardens pointed out to me a monkey, belonging 

 to the New World division, equally remarkable for intelligence. 

 Rengger, also, insists on the diversity in the various mental char- 

 acters of the monkeys of the same species which he kept in Para- 

 guay; and this diversity, as he adds, is partly Innate, and par-tly 

 the result of the manner in which they have been treated or 

 educated." 



s 'Anatomy of the Arteries,' by R. Quain. Preface, vol. i. 1844. 



■■ 'Transact. Royal Soc. Edinburgh,' vol. xxiv. pp. 175, 189. 



s 'Proc. Royal Soc' 1867, p. 544; also 1S6S, pp. 483, 624. There is a. pre- 

 vious paper, 1866, p. 229. 



1 'Proc. R. Irish Academy," vol. x. 1S65, p, 141. 



' 'Act. Acad. St. Petersburg,' 1778, part ii. p. 217. 



" Brehm, 'Thierleben,' B. i. s. 5S, 87. Rengger. 'Saugethiere von Para- 

 guay,' s. 57. 



