xv DARWINISM APPLIED TO MAX 447 



and this property has been proved, in one case, to be inherited. 

 In the outer fold of the ear there is sometimes a projecting point, 

 corresponding in position to the pointed ear of many animals, 

 and believed to be a rudiment of it. In the alimentary canal 

 there is a rudiment — the vermiform appendage of the caecum — 

 which is not only useless, but is sometimes a cause of disease 

 and death in man ; yet in many vegetable feeding animals it 

 is very long, and even in the orang-utan it is of considerable 

 length and convoluted. So, man possesses rudimentary bones 

 of a tail concealed beneath the skin, and, in some rare cases, 

 this forms a minute external tail. 



The variability of every part of man's structure is very 

 great, and many of these variations tend to approximate 

 towards the structure of other animals. The courses of the 

 arteries are eminently variable, so that for surgical purposes 

 it has been necessary to determine the probable proportion of 

 each variation. The muscles are so variable that in fifty cases 

 the muscles of the foot were found to be not strictly alike in 

 any two, and in some the deviations were considerable ; while 

 in thirty-six subjects Mr. J. Wood observed no fewer than 558 

 muscular variations. The same author states that in a single 

 male subject there were no fewer than seven muscular varia- 

 tions, all of which plainly represented muscles proper to various 

 kinds of apes. The muscles of the hands and arms — parts 

 which are so eminently characteristic of man — are extremely 

 liable to vary, so as to resemble the corresponding muscles of 

 the lower animals. That such variations are due to reversion 

 to a former state of existence Mr. Darwin thinks highly prob- 

 able, and he adds : "It is quite incredible that a man should, 

 through mere accident, abnormally resemble certain apes in 

 no less than seven of his muscles, if there had been no genetic 

 connection between them. On the other hand, if man is 

 descended from some ape-like creature, no valid reason can be 

 assigned why certain muscles should not suddenly reappear 

 after an interval of many thousand generations, in the same 

 manner as, with horses, asses, and mules, dark coloured 

 stripes suddenly reappear on the legs and shoulders, after 

 an interval of hundreds, or more probably of thousands of 

 generations." l 



1 Descent of Man, pp. 41-43 ; also pp. 13-15. 



