Page:Natural History (1848).djvu/14

4, vertical mode of progression; which is indicated also by the form and direction of the foot, by the mode in which the weight of the body is thrown upon the arch of the instep, by the projection of the heel for the attachment of the great muscles of the calf which raise the body in walking, by the breadth and flatness of the sole, and by the great toe, not having any power of opposing the others as a thumb, and therefore confining the use of the foot to that of an instrument of progression. ‘The lateral breadth of the chest, throwing the shoulders wide apart, the mode in which the head of the shoulder is jointed to the blade, the structure of the elbow, fore-arm, and hand, the position of the heart and other viscera, the influx of blood to the head, not mitigated as in the brutes by subdivision of the arteries, as well as the form, comparative development, and arrangement of the muscles of various parts of his body, prove that Man is necessitated by his whole structure to assume that erect and commanding attitude, which is so becoming to him as a moral and intellectual being.

But in these important particulars, and in many others, the detail of which would be unsuitable to the present work, the brutes differ in anatomical structure and consequent habit from Man, though in various degrees; nor does the present Order offer any exception to this diversity, though some of its highest members approach nearer than others to his form and structure in some few of these particulars.

The Quadrumana are formed for an attitude neither erect nor horizontal, but diagonal in various degrees. ‘They rest in a crouching posture,