Page:Evolution of Life (Henry Cadwalader Chapman, 1873).djvu/229

Rh occasion so often to mention, that the lower animals retain permanently forms that are only transitory in the higher. We see further examples of this principle in the receding of the forehead and jaws, which are only exhibited by the skulls of the higher races in their embryonic or undeveloped condition, in the learning of the child to walk, and in the development of speech. The erect position of man is often regarded as an objection to his having descended from a lower animal. But as it is evidently an advantage for man to use his hands for grasping, etc., but his feet to stand and walk upon, we can understand how, through the Struggle for Existence, etc., this division of labor was brought about. The view of the erect position having been gradually assumed by man is confirmed by such facts as the creeping on all-fours of the baby and the shuffling unsteady gait of the young child. The baby, at the first month, uses its foot like a hand, and it is well, known that some savage people retain the mobility of the big toe, using it as a thumb and the other toes as fingers; further, the unsteady sidelong step of the child learning to walk is seen in the semi-erect gait sometimes assumed by the Gibbon and Gorilla. The young Chimpanzee, walking along hand-in-hand with his keeper, resembles so strongly a little negro learning to walk, that it is impossible not to recognize their distant cousinship. In a word, the transitory stages through which an individual man passes in learning to walk represent the stages through which man in general has passed in assuming the erect position, the transitory stages being permanently retained in the lower animals.

It is admitted by all that articulate speech is peculiar to Man. The possession of this faculty, however, does not seem to be inconsistent with the view of his animal descent. It is well known that animals communicate their ideas by means of touch, sounds, etc.: thus, the Dog barks in different ways, expressive of pain, anger, joy, despair, entreaty.