164 DARWINISM STATED BY DAKWIN HIMSELF. 



history. These several inTentions, by which man in the 

 rudest state has become so pie-eminent, are the direct 

 results of the development of his powers of observation, 

 memory, curosity, imagination, and reason. 



p . Archaeologists are convinced that an enor- 



mous interval of time elapsed before our an- 

 cestors thought of grinding chipped flints into smooth 

 tools. One can hardly doubt that a man-like animal 

 who possessed a hand and arm sufficiently perfect to 

 thrOw a stone with precision, or to form a flint into a 

 rude tool, could, with sufficient practice, as far as me- 

 chanical skill alone is concerned, make almost anything 

 which a civilized man can make. The structure of the 

 hand in this respect may be compared with that of the 

 vocal organs, which in the apes are used for uttering 

 various signal-cries, or, as in one genus, musical cadences ; 

 but in man the closely similar vocal organs have become 

 adapted through the inherited effects of use for the utter- 

 ance of articulate language. 



Turning now to the nearest allies of men, and there- 

 fore to the best representatives of our early progenitors, 

 we find that the hands of the Quadrumana are constructed 

 on the same general pattern as our own, but are far less 

 perfectly adapted for diversified uses. Their hands do 

 not serve for locomotion so well as the feet of a dog ; as 

 may be seen in such monkeys as the chimpanzee and 

 orang, which walk on the outer margins of the palms, or 

 on the knuckles. Their hands, however, are admirably 

 adapted for climbing trees. Monkeys seize thin branches 

 or ropes, with the thumb on one side and the fingers and 

 palm on the other, in the same manner as we do. They 

 can thus also lift rather large objects, such as the neck of 

 a bottle, to their mouths. Baboons turn over stones and 



