VIEWS ON THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



371 



This is certainly, for the time it was written, an 

 original, comprehensive, and bold attempt at ex- 

 plaining in a tentative way, or at least suggesting, 

 the probable origin of man from some arboreal crea- 

 ture allied to the apes. It is as regards the actual 

 evolutional steps supposed to have been taken by 

 the simian ancestors of man, a more detailed and 

 comprehensive hypothesis than that offered by Dar- 

 win in his Descent of Man* which Lamarck has an- 

 ticipated. Darwin does not refer to this theory of 

 Lamarck, and seems to have entirely overlooked it, 

 as have others since his time. The theory of the 

 change from an arboreal life and climbing posture 

 to an erect one, and the transformation of the hinder 

 pair of hands into the feet of the erect human animal, 

 remind us of the very probable hypothesis of Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer, as to the modification of the quad- 

 rumanous posterior pair of hands to form the plan- 

 tigrade feet of man. 



* Vol. i., chapter iv., pp. 135-151 ; ii., p. 372. 



