GENERAL CLASSIFICATION 171 



create successively new wants, which will stimulate its skill and 

 gradually perfect its powers and faculties ; 



4. Finally, that this predominant race, having acquired an absolute 

 supremacy over all the rest, will ultimately establish a difference 

 between itself and the most perfect animals, and indeed will leave 

 them far behind. 



The most perfect of the quadrumanous races might thus have become 

 dominant ; have changed its habits as a result of the absolute sway 

 exercised over the others, and of its new wants ; have progressively 

 acquired modifications in its organisation, and many new faculties ; 

 have kept back the most perfect of the other races to the condition 

 that they had reached ; and have wrought very striking distinctions 

 between these last and themselvesTj 



The orang of Angola {Simla troglodytes, Lin.) is the most perfect of 

 animals : it is much more perfect than the orang of the Indies (Simia 

 satyrus, Lin.), called the orang-outang; yet they are both very inferior 

 to man in bodily faculties and intelHgence.^ These animals often 

 stand upright ; but as that attitude is not a confirmed habit, their 

 organisation has not been sufficiently modified by it, so that the 

 standing position is very uncomfortable for them. 



We know from the stories of travellers, especially as regards the 

 orang of the Indies, that when it has to fly from some pressing danger 

 it immediately faUs on to its four feet. Thus, it is said, the true 

 origin of this animal is disclosed, since it is obliged to abandon a 

 deceptive attitude that is alien to it. 



No doubt this attitude is alien to it, since it adopts it less when 

 moving about, and its organisation is hence less adapted to it ; but 

 does it foUow that, because the erect position is easy to man, it is 

 therefore natural to him ? 



Although a long series of generations has confirmed the habit of 

 moving about in an upright position, yet this attitude is none the less 

 a tiring condition in which man can only remain for a hmited period, 

 by means of the contraction of some of his muscles. 



If the vertebral column were the axis of the human body, and kept 

 the head and other parts in equihbrium, man would be in a position 

 of rest when standing upright. Now we all know that this is not 

 the case ; that the head is out of relation with the centre of gravity ; 

 that the weight of the chest and belly, with their contained viscera, 

 falls almost entirely in front of the vertebral column ; that the latter 

 has a slanting base, etc. Hence it is necessary as M. Richerand 

 observes, to keep a constant watch when standing, in order to avoid 



1 See in my Recherches sur lee corps vivants, p. 136, some observations on the 

 orang of Angola. 



