420 THE HAND AS AN UNRULY MEMBER. 
the special needs of man, of the beast, the bird, and the 
reptile, and a like survey of the posterior limbs having 
shown the same to be the case with them (Figs. 7, 8, 9), 
so that they all present different degrees of homology or 
morphological relationship, our anatomical pioneers have 
conceived that a similar correspondence prevails between 
the anterior and posterior limbs themselves; so that not 
only is the shoulder, at one end of the body, merely a 
repetition of the pelvis at the other, but the arm as far 
as the elbow is seen in the thigh with the knee, the fore- 
arm in the leg, the wrist in the ankle-joint, and the 
hand, alas, in the foot, —* Pes altera manus.” * 
ut here, in extremitatum extremis, humanity rebels. 
Science has gone far enough in proving that, for purposes 
of rational comparison and anatomical inquiry, man must 
assume a horizontal position on all-fours like a beast, 80 _ 
. that his arms and legs become mere “anterior and poste- 
rior extremities ;” after which degradation he can indeed 
arise and resume the attitude proper to the lord of crea- 
tion. But to his upper and nobler parts this last come 
parison is most odious. They entreat us with clasped 
hands, they threaten us with clenched fist; they would 
flee from the threatened contamination ; they would sit in 
sullen scorn at the degrading fellowship: but neither 
active or passive resistance is possible without the aid of 
the despised member, and so by slow degrees it is grant- 
ed that the ‘ium (Fig. 7 1) does look very like a scapula 
(Fig. 1 s); that the femur, or thigh-bone (£), bears 4 
wonderful resemblance to the humerus, or bone of the arm 
(m) ; that the knee-pan (P) is quite as exposed a part as 
the elbow; and that, perhaps, the taper forearm is only 3 
*These are the closing words of the first treatis this subject, —a paper by 
Felix Vieq d’Aryr. . Œuvres akaa M de 305, Vi L IV. p. 37. Mems. dela 
Academie Royale des Sciences, T94. | 0 0mh eee 
