50 THE DESCENT OP MAN. 



arms could hardly have become perfect enough to have manu- 

 factured weapons, or to have hurled stones and spears with a true 

 aim, as long as they were habitually used for locomotion and for 

 supporting the whole weight of the body, or, as before remarked, 

 so long as they were especially fitted for climbing trees. Such 

 rough treatment would also have blunted the sense of touch, on 

 which their delicate use largely depends. From these causes 

 alone it would have been an advantage to man to become a biped; 

 but for many actions It is indispensable that the arms and whole 

 upper part of the body should be free; and he must for this end 

 stand firmly on his feet. To gain this great advantage, the feet 

 have been rendered flat; and the great toe has been peculiarly 

 modified, though this has entailed the almost complete loss of its 

 power of prehension. It accords with the principle of the division 

 of physiological labor, prevailing throughout the animal king- 

 dom, that as the hands became perfected for prehension, the feet 

 should have become perfected for support and locomotion. With 

 some savages, however, the foot has not altogether lost its pre- 

 hensile power, as shown by their manner of climbing trees, and of 

 using them in other ways." 



If it be an advantage to man to stand firmly on his feet and 

 to have his hands and arms free, of which, from his pre-emi- 

 nent success in the battle of life, there can be no doubt, then I 

 can see no reason why it should not have been • advantageous 

 to the progenitors of man to have become more and more 

 erect or bipedal. They would thus have been better able to de- 

 fend themselves with stones or clubs, to attack their prey, 

 or otherwise to obtain food. The best built individuals 

 would in the long run have succeeded best, and have sur- 

 vived in larger numbers. If the gorilla and a few allied 

 forms had become extinct, it might have been argued, with 

 great force and apparent truth, that an animal could not have 

 been gradually converted from a quadruped into a biped, as all 

 the individuals in an intermediate condition would have been 

 miserably ill-fitted for progression. But we know (and this is well 

 worthy of reflection) that the anthropomorphous apes are now 

 actually in an intermediate condition; and no one doubts that 

 they are on the whole well adapted for their conditions of life. 

 Thus the gorilla runs with a sidelong shambling gait, but more 



" Hackel has an excellent discussion on the steps by which man be- 

 came a biped: 'Naturliche Schopfung-sgeschichte,' 1868, s. 507. Dr. 

 Suchner ('Conferences sur la Theorle Darwinienne,' 1869, p. 135) has 

 given g-ood cases of the use of the foot as a prehensile organ by man; 

 and has also written on the manner of progression of the higher apes, 

 ?o which I allude In the following paragraph: see also Owen ('Anat- 

 omy of Vertebrates,' vol. ill. p. 71) on this latter subject. 



