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Show 108 THE DESCENT OF 1\IAL~. P.\UT I. The facts and. conclusions to be given in this chapter relate almost exclusively to the probable means by which the transformation of man has been effected as far as his bodily structure is concerned. The fol~ lowing chapter will be devoted to the development of his intellectual and moral faculties. But the present discussion likewise bears on the origin of the different races or species of mankind, whichever term may be preferred. It is manifest that man is now subject to much variability. No two individuals of the same race are quite alike. Tf{ e may compare millions of faces and each wiJl b~ di~tin?t. There is an equally ~reat amount of diversity m the proportions and dimensions of .the various parts of the body; the length of the legs bemg one of the most variable points.1 Although in some quarters of the world an elongated skull, and in o~her ~uarters a short skull prevails, yet there is great diversity of shape even within the limits of the same race, as with the aborigines of America and South ;;ustralia,-the .latter a race "probably as pure and " ~omo?eneou~, m blood, customs, and language as any m existence -and even with the inhabitants of so confined an area as the Sandwich Islands.2 An emin~ nt ~ent~st assures me that there is nearly as much diversity m the teeth, as in the features. The chief arteries so frequently run in abnormal courses, that it has been found useful for surgical purposes to calculate 1 '. Inv,estigations in Military and Antbropolog. Statistics of American Soldrers, by B. A. Gould, 1869, p. 256. 2 With ~espect to the " Cranial fo;ms of the America.n aborigines," sec Dr. Aitken Meigs. in 'Proc. A cad. Nat. Sci.' Philadelphia, May, 18~6. On~ the Australians, see Huxley, in Lyell's 'Antiquity of Man,' 1~63, P· 81 .. on the Sandwich Islanders, Prof. J. Wyman 'Observa-twns on Crama,' Boston, 1868, p. 18. ' CuAP. 1\'. MANNER OF DEVELOPMENT. 109 feom 12,000 corpses how often each course prevails.:l The muscles are eminently variable : thus those of the foot were found by Prof. rrurner 4 not to be strictly alike in :my two out of fifty bodies; and in some the deviations were considerable. Prof. Turner adds that the power of performing the appropriate moyements must have been modified in accordance with the several deviations. l\fr. J. Wood has recorded 5 the occurrence of 295 muscular variations in thirty-six subjects, and in another set of the same number no less than 558 variations, reckoning both sides of the body as one. In the last set., not one body out of the thirty-six was "found "totally wanting in departures from the standard de" scriptions of the muscular system given in anatomical " text-books." A single body presented the extraordinary number of twenty-five distinct abnormalities. The same muscle sometimes varies in many ways : thus Prof. ::M:acalister describes 6 no less than twenty distinct variations in the palmaris accessorius. The famous old anatomist, '"7 olff,7 insists that the internal viscera are more variable than the external parts: Nulla particula est qute non aliter et aliter in aliis se habeat hominibus. He has even written a treatise on the choice of typical examples of the viscera for representation. A discussion on the beau-ideal of the liver, lungs, kidneys, &c., as of the human face divine, sounds strange in our ears. The variability or diversity of the mental faculties in men of the same race, not to mention the greater 3 'Anatomy of the Arteries,' by R. Quain. 4 'Transact. Royal Soc.' Edinburgh, vol. xxh'. p. 175, 18!.1. 6 'Proc. Royal Soc.' 1867, p. 544; also 1868, p. 483, 524. Tl:ere is a previous paper, 1866, p. 229. 6 'Proc. R. Irish Academy,' vol. x. 1868, p. 141. 7 'Act. Acad.,' St. Petersburg, 1 i78, part ii. p. 217. |