366 LAMARCK, HIS LIFE AND WORK 



seizing, or using them like nippers in cutting leaves 

 for food, and should they only be used in chewing 

 food, there is no doubt that their facial angle would 

 become higher, that their muzzle would become 

 shorter and shorter, and that in the end this being 

 entirely effaced, their incisor teeth would become 

 vertical. 



" Now supposing that a race of Quadrumana, as 

 for example the most perfect, had acquired, by 

 habits constant in every individual, the structure 

 I have just described, and the power of standing 

 erect and of walking upright, and that as the result 

 of this it had come to dominate the other races of 

 animals, we should then conceive: 



" I. That this race farther advanced in its facul- 

 ties, having arrived at the stage when it lords it over 

 the others, will be spread over the surface of the 

 globe in every suitable place; 



" 2. That it will -hunt the other higher races of 

 animals and will struggle with them for preeminence 

 {lui disputer les biens de la terre) and that it wiil force 

 them to take refuge in regions which it does not 

 occupy; 



" 3. That being injured by the great multiplica- 

 tion of closely allied races, and having banished them 

 into forests or other desert places, it will arrest the 

 progress of improvement in their faculties, while its 

 own self, the ruler of the region over which it 

 spreads, will increase in population without hin- 

 drance on the part of others, and, living in numer- 

 ous tribes, will in succession create new needs which 

 should stimulate industry and gradually render still 

 more perfect its means and powers; 



" 4. That, finally, this preeminent race having 

 acquired an absolute supremacy over all the others, 

 there arose between it and the highest animals a 

 difference and indeed a considerable interval. 



" Thus the most perfect race of Quadrumana will 



