1220 Growth, its Conditions and Variations. [December, 
- to’ the development of any new herbivorous monster. Man 
needs the earth for himself; he demands the bulk of the food; 
and the older dominant forms of the lower kingdom of animals 
are steadily declining and disappearing before his destructive vigor 
and successful food competition. 
Some remarks in regard to the size of man are pertinent in 
conclusion. The human type, if derived from the Quadrumana, 
has, like several other animal tribes whose fossil progenitors have 
recently been discovered, steadily increased in size. The lower 
Quadrumana are arboreal in habit, and are necessarily restricted 
in size by the exigencies of their active life. Those which have 
left the trees for the earth have diverged in two directions, to- 
wards the essentially quadruped baboon, and the nearly biped 
anthropomorphic ape. To the latter the human biped is most 
nearly related. But the superior organization and powers of man 
have not resulted in an increase in bulk over the great apes. 
There has been rather a diminution. And this may have arisen 
from the great muscular activity and mental energy of man, 
necessitated in his migratory outspreading over the earth, and his 
incessant conflict with the lower animals, to which the tropical 
forest life of the modern great apes makes no demand. 
_ If we consider man in his civilized state no lack of activity 
appears. The muscular is merely replaced in great measure by 
active mental energy. Food has grown abundant, but is ae 
superabundant with the great mass of the people of any nation. 
The share of food obtained by the active farmer, for instance, 4 
much less than that obtained by the sluggish ox in his field. 
Thus the present average size of man is doubtless partly 80V- 
erned by the average quantity of food which each man pr 
obtain. ‘There: is “some: reason’. to believe that manyti i 
greater bulk than was the man of the middle ages. ya 7 
supply for each man is certainly greater than then. It might 
argued that by a decrease in the number of men, under 
conditions, an increase in the food supply of each and, iste 
in the average size might be produced, yet any such variation ae 
only take place with extreme slowness. As man now exists 
size is in harmonious relation with the conditions of his gen 
and cannot be rapidly departed from. In addition to the gr a 
restraining energies of muscular and mental activity, the ppa” 
tive capacity is such that there is a constant tendency tO 
