250 Notices of Books. [April, 



far above even the most intelligent of his nearest relatives, it was 

 necessary that his hands should not be used for the purpose of 

 locomotion, and hence that he should acquire the habit of 

 walking erect on his hind legs. This great change having 

 become effected in the course of countless generations, the rest 

 followed more easily, and probably more rapidly. " The pelvis 

 would have to be made broader, the spine peculiarly curved, and 

 the head fixed in an altered position, and all these changes have 

 been attained by man. Professor Schaafhausen maintains that 

 'the powerful mastoid processes of the human skull are the result 

 of his erect position ; ' and these processes are absent in the 

 orang, chimpanzee, &c.,and are smaller in the gorilla than in man, 

 Various other structures might here have been specified which 

 appear connected with man's erect position. It is very difficult 

 to decide how far all these correlated modifications are the result 

 of natural selection, and how far of the inherited effects of the 

 increased use of certain parts, or of the action of one part on 

 another. No doubt these means of change act and react on each 

 other; thus, when certain muscles, and the crests of bone to 

 which they are attached, become enlarged by habitual use, this 

 shows that certain actions are habitually performed, and must 

 be serviceable. Hence the individuals which performed them 

 best would tend to survive in greater numbers." The increased use 

 of the hands and hand-made weapons, and the consequent decreased 

 use of the jaws and teeth in fighting, would tend at once by disuse 

 to a reduction of the great development of the jaws, and especially 

 of the canine teeth of the males, which is the most conspicuous 

 element in the facial difference between the higher apes and man. 

 The absence of hair on the back and other parts of the body, 

 which presents so great a difficulty to Mr. Wallace, arose 

 probably from that sexual selection which Mr. Darwin enters into 

 so largely in the latter part of the book, originating in the female 

 from a dawning sense of beauty in the male, and hence becoming 

 transmitted by inheritance to both sexes. With the increased 

 use of the hands and gradual discovery of the arts, the social 

 instincts were developed, man became more and more dependent 

 on his fellow, the brain was brought more and more in requisition, 

 and hence, together with the skull, increased in size; the intellect 

 became increasingly developed, and hence half-savage man 

 gradually emerged into definite existence. 



To return to the question of the single or plural origin of man; 

 there is much to be said in favour of the former idea. The fertile 

 interbreeding of all races with one another; the discovery of 

 the use of fire and of other arts in pre-historic times, and many 

 other circumstances, point to this conclusion. On the other hand, 

 there are many grave difficulties in the way, if we look to natural 

 or sexual selection as the only means by which man has 

 raised himself above the level of the brutes. Our nearest 

 living relatives, the anthropoid apes, belonging to the section 

 Simiadcz, include the orang, the gibbons, the chimpanzee, 



