THE  CHIMPANZEE  AND  ORANG  UTAN. 
371 
generations  to  maintain  the  erect  position  ;  but  if  we  look  a  little  further  into  the 
anatomy  of  the  Orangs,  a  difficulty  presents  itself  unforeseen  by  Lamarck.  The  muscle 
called  flexor  longus  pollicis  pedis  terminates,  in  the  human  subject,  in  a  single  tendon, 
and  its  force  is  concentrated  on  the  great  toe, — the  principal  point  of  resistance  in 
raising  the  body  upon  the  heel.  In  the  Orang,  however,  the  analogous  muscle  termi- 
nates in  three  tendons,  which  are  inserted  separately  and  exclusively  in  the  three  middle 
toes,  obviously  to  enable  these  to  grasp  with  greater  force  the  boughs  of  trees,  &c.  It 
is  surely  asking  too  much  to  require  us  to  believe  that  in  the  course  of  time,  under  any 
circumstances,  these  three  tendons  should  become  consolidated  into  one,  and  that  one 
become  implanted  into  a  toe  to  which  none  of  the  three  separate  tendons  were  before 
attached.  The  myology  of  the  Orangs,  to  which  I  may  hereafter  endeavour  to  direct 
more  attention  than  it  has  yet  received,  affords  many  arguments  equally  unanswerable 
against  the  possibility  of  their  transmutation  into  a  higher  race  of  beings. 
Certain  modifications  in  the  form  of  the  human  pelvis  have  been  observed  to  accom- 
pany the  different  forms  of  the  cranium  which  characterize  the  different  races  of  man- 
kind ;  but  there  is  nothing  in  the  form  of  the  pelvis  of  the  Australian  or  Negro  which 
tends  to  diminish  the  wide  hiatus  that  separates  the  Bimanous  from  the  Quadrumanous 
type  of  structure  in  regard  to  this  part  of  the  skeleton.  Observation  has  not  yet  shown 
that  the  pelvis  of  the  Orang  in  a  state  of  captivity  undergoes  any  change  approximating 
it  towards  the  peculiar  form  which  the  same  part  presents  in  the  human  subject :  the 
idea  that  the  iliac  bones  would  become  expanded  and  curved  forwards,  from  the  pres- 
sure of  the  superincumbent  viscera  consequent  on  habitual  attempts  at  progression  on 
the  lower  extremities,  is  merely  speculative. 
Those  features  of  the  cranium  of  the  Orangs,  which  stamp  the  character  of  the  irra- 
tional brute  most  strongly  upon  their  frame,  are,  however,  of  a  kind,  and  the  result  of 
a  law  originally  impressed  upon  the  species,  which  cannot  be  supposed  to  be  modified 
under  any  circumstances,  or  during  any  lapse  of  time  ;  for  what  external  influence 
operating  upon  and  around  the  animal  can  possibly  modify  in  its  offspring  the  forms, 
or  alter  the  size,  of  the  deeply-seated  germs  of  the  permanent  teeth?  They  exist  before 
the  animal  is  born,  and  let  him  improve  his  thinking  faculties  as  he  may,  they  must,  in 
obedience  to  an  irresistible  law,  pass  through  the  phases  of  their  development,  and  in- 
duce those  remarkable  changes  in  the  maxillary  portion  of  the  skull  which  give  to  the 
adult  Orangs  a  more  bestial  form  and  expression  of  head  than  many  of  the  inferior  Simice 
present. 
It  is  true  that  in  the  human  subject  the  cranium  varies  in  its  relative  proportions  to 
the  face  in  different  tribes,  according  to  the  degree  of  civilization  and  cerebral  develop- 
ment which  they  attain  ;  and  that  in  the  more  debased  Ethiopian  varieties  and  Pa- 
puans, the  skull  makes  some  approximation  to  the  Quadrumanous  proportions  :  but 
in  these  cases,  as  well  as  when  the  cranium  is  distorted  by  artificial  means  or  b)''  con- 
genital malformation,  it  is  always  accompanied  by  a  form  of  the  jaws,  and  by  a  dispo- 
