AS APPLIED TO MAN. 349 
they both lead us to the same conclusion—that some 
other power than Natural Selection has been engaged 
in his production. 
Feet and Hands of Man, considered as Difficulties on 
the Theory of Natural Selection. 
There are a few other physical characteristics of 
man, that may just be mentioned as offering similar 
difficulties, though I do not attach the same importance 
to them as to those I have already dwelt on. The 
specialization and perfection of the hands and feet of 
man seems difficult to account for. Throughout the 
whole of the quadrumana the foot is prehensile; and a 
very rigid selection must therefore have been needed 
to bring about that arrangement of the bones and 
muscles, which has converted the thumb into a great 
toe, so completely, that the power of opposability is 
totally lost in every race, whatever some travellers 
may vaguely assert to the contrary. It is difficult to 
see why the prehensile power should have been taken 
away. It must certainly have been useful in climb- 
ing, and the case of the baboons shows that it is quite 
compatible with terrestrial locomotion. It may not 
be compatible with perfectly easy erect locomotion; 
but, then, how can we conceive that early man, as an 
animal, gained anything by purely erect locomotion ? 
Again, the hand of man contains latent capacities 
and powers which are unused by savages, and must 
have been even less used by paleolithic man and. his 
still ruder predecessors. It has all the appearance of 
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