will. Sir C. Bell (73. The Hand, etc., Bridgewater Treatise, 1833,
p. 38.) insists that the hand supplies all instruments, and by its
correspondence with the intellect gives him universal dominion. But
the hands and arms could hardly have become perfect enough to have
manufactured weapons, or to have hurled stones and spears with a true
aim, as long as they were habitually used for locomotion and for
supporting the whole weight of the body, or, as before remarked, so
long as they were especially fitted for climbing trees. Such rough
treatment would also have blunted the sense of touch, on which their
delicate use largely depends. From these causes alone it would have
been an advantage to man to become a biped; but for many actions it is
indispensable that the arms and whole upper part of the body should be
free; and he must for this end stand firmly on his feet. To gain this
great advantage, the feet have been rendered flat; and the great toe
has been peculiarly modified, though this has entailed the almost
complete loss of its power of prehension. It accords with the principle
of the division of physiological labour, prevailing throughout the
animal kingdom, that as the hands became perfected for prehension, the
feet should have become perfected for support and locomotion. With some
savages, however, the foot has not altogether lost its prehensile
power, as shewn by their manner of climbing trees, and of using them in
other ways. (74. Haeckel has an excellent discussion on the steps by
which man became a biped: Naturliche Schopfungsgeschichte, 1868, s.
507. Dr. Buchner ( Conferences sur la Theorie Darwinienne, 1869, p.
135) has given good cases of the use of the foot as a prehensile organ
by man; and has also written on the manner of progression of the higher
apes, to which I allude in the following paragraph: see also Owen
( Anatomy of Vertebrates, vol. iii. p. 71) on this latter subject.)
If it be an advantage to man to stand firmly on his feet and to have
his hands and arms free, of which, from his pre-eminent success in the
battle of life there can be no doubt, then I can see no reason why it
should not have been advantageous to the progenitors of man to have
become more and more erect or bipedal. They would thus have been better
able to defend themselves with stones or clubs, to attack their prey,
or otherwise to obtain food. The best built individuals would in the
long run have succeeded best, and have survived in larger numbers. If
the gorilla and a few allied forms had become extinct, it might have
been argued, with great force and apparent truth, that an animal could
not have been gradually converted from a quadruped into a biped, as all
62