From Lemur to Ape.

Returning now to our Eocene lemur we must remind ourselves of the problem before his simple mind and those of his Simian descendants. How was he to change so greatly the direction of the hair on his forearm (Fig. [1]) till it should turn right about face and imitate those great German “victories” of Hindenburg, well called Marshal Rückwarts? The problem lies open in the Figure and receiving no aid from Selection or survival of the fittest, in this little effort, he had to fall back on the eternal and tedious force of habit and use. I am afraid if here I were interrupted by some critic, more learned than wise, by a summary demand on the part of Selection for its share in the result, I should be tempted to reply with the word Φλυαρια employed by George Borrow, forbearing to give the transla­tion of the reply as he gives it. Anyhow, it is a case in which to “listen politely and change the subject.”

Here comes in the aspect of strife between primitive and new obstructing forces in a little hair-stream. The lemur lives in trees and carries on a stealthy nocturnal business, moving on all fours in quest of his daily bread, and no external force or new habit avails to modify the hair-slope on his forearms, and so it remains until some primitive form of monkey, gradually evolving into a primitive ape, brings into the family new habits and customs. Other men and other manners appear in the Miocene Age. Our supposed Dryopithecus fontani becomes more upright in his bodily, and perhaps his moral habits, and spends an increasing amount of his leisure time in the sitting posture; his hands are frequently grasping a bough as he sits and reflects, it may be in a man-ward direction, or, as is more likely, on his last meal of nuts and fruits. But he did not spend quite so much time as Wallace and others think in this futile attitude, for he knew in his way as much as the modern bachelor does, of making his posture comfortable and restful when he was not out at work, and he varied his plans by resting his forearms on his thigh, crouched up and cosy, and doubtless slept much in this attitude. All these bold departures from his lemur-ancestor’s habits had the necessary result of altering the slope of his hair on the forearms, which was now growing as long and coarse as we see it to-day in the orang. In course of milleniums the ancient forces yielded to those of the new armies, and the once normal slope became reversed in a way which shocked the conservative lemurs of his day. It requires little imagina­tion to see how the lengthening thickening hairs on this limb-segment became changed in their direction by friction against the opposing surfaces of the thighs, by gravita­tion, and the frequent dripping of rain when they were held up to grasp a bough. Here then we see at work new forces of friction, pressure, gravita­tion and dripping of rain, turning endlessly and slowly the lemur-fashion into the ape-fashion, with unlimited time for their effectual action. In this stock of Man’s ancestry Selection was taking care of the individual and Habit of the details of his making—two truly harmonious partners.