78 TBE DESCENT OF MAN 



better able to defend 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 survived 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 au 

 animal could not have been gradually converted from a quad- 

 ruped into a biped, as all the individuals in an intermediate 

 condition would have been miserably ill-fitted for progres- 

 sion. 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 

 commonly progresses by resting on its bent hands. The 

 long-armed apes occasionally use their arms like crutches, 

 swinging their bodies forward between them, and some kinds 

 of Hylobates, without having been taught, can walk or run 

 upright with tolerable quickness; yet they move awkwardly 

 and much less securely than man. We see, in short, in ex- 

 isting monkeys a manner of progression intermediate between 

 that of a quadruped and a biped; but, as an unprejudiced 

 judge" insists, the anthropomorphous apes approach in 

 structure more nearly to the bipedal than to the quadru- 

 pedal type. 



As the progenitors of man became more and more erect, 

 with their hands and arms more and more modified for pre- 

 hension and other purposes, with their feet and legs at the 

 same time transformed for firm support and progression, 

 endless other changes of structure would have become nec- 

 essary. The pelvis would have, to be broadened, the spine 

 peculiarly curved, and the head fixed in an altered position, 

 all which changes have been attained by man. Prof. Schaaff- 

 hausen" maintains that "the powerful mastoid processes of 



™ Prof. Brooa, La Constitution des VertSbres caudalea: "La Revue d'An- 

 thropolc^e," 1812, p. 26 (separate copy). 



'• "On the Primitive Form of the Skull," translated in "Anthropological 



