VIEWS ON THE EVOLUTION OF MAN itj 



have been enabled to become dominant, to change 

 its habits as the result of the absolute dominion 

 which it will have assumed over the others, and with 

 its new needs, by progressively acquiring modifica- 

 tions in its structure and its new and numerous 

 powers, to keep within due limits the most highly 

 developed of the other races in the state to which 

 they had advanced, and to create between it and 

 these last very remarkable distinctions. 



" The Angola orang (Siniia troglodytes Lin.) is the 

 highest animal; it is much more perfect than the 

 orang of the Indies [Simla satyrus Lin.), which is 

 called the orang-outang, and, nevertheless, as re- 

 gards their structure they are both very inferior to 

 man in bodily faculties and intelligence. These ani- 

 mals often stand erect; but this attitude is not ha- 

 bitual, their organization not having been sufficiently 

 modified, so that standing still {station) is painful 

 for them. 



"It is known, from the accounts of travellers, 

 especially in regard to the orang of the Indies, that 

 when immediate danger obliges it to fly, it immedi- 

 ately falls on all fours. This betrays, they tell us, 

 the true origin of this animal, since it is obliged to 

 abandon the alien unaccustomed partially erect atti- 

 tude which is thrust upon it. 



" Without doubt this attitude is foreign to it, 

 since in its change of locality it makes less use of 

 it, which shows that its organization is less adapted 

 to it; but though it has become easier for man to 

 stand up straight, is the erect posture wholly natural 

 to him ? 



" Although man, who, by his habits, maintained 

 in the individuals of his species during a great series 

 of generations, can stand erect only while changing 

 from one place to another, this attitude is not less 

 in his case a condition of fatigue, during which he is 

 able to maintain himself in an upright position only 



