Bimanes

Naturalists who have considered man have formed out of the 6 known varieties a particular genus.

Man alone makes up a separate family, characterized in the following way:

Mammals with separate limbs with nails; three types of teeth and opposable thumbs only on the hands

Man

Varieties

Caucasian Hyperborean Mongolian American Malayan Ethiopian or Negro

This family has been called “bimanes” because only human hands display a thumb separated and opposing the digits.

In the quadrumanes, the hands and the feet show this same characteristic, so far as the thumb is concerned.

Some Observations Relevant to Men

Human organic structure is a product of ancient changes in his actions and habits which he acquired.

• These habits are different from other species.

Quadrumanes would be transformed into bimanes over many generations if:

• they lost the habit of climbing up trees and grasping branches with their feet
• were forced to use their feet only for movement and stopped using their hands as feet

The thumbs on their feet would cease to be separated from the digits since all movement is already done by these feet.

If they needed to grow taller to see far and wide, they would be forced to hold themselves upright as a constant habit from one generation to the next.

• Their feet would take the shape appropriate for stading upright.
• Their limbs would acquire calves.
• They would find difficulty moving on their hands and feet at the same time.

If they stopped using their jaws as weapons for biting, tearing, or seizing and instead only use it for chewing then:

• their facial angle would become more open
• their muzzle would shorten more and would be removed
• they would have vertical incisor teeth

Assume that because of these changes, they dominated the other races of animals.

1. This race, more perfect in its capabilities will spread itself out over the surface of the earth

2. This race will have chased off the other prominent races

3. By harming the large multiplication of the races close to it in their affinities and having relegated them to the woods or other deserted places, this race will have stopped the progress in the perfection of their faculties;

while that race itself, capable of extending itself everywhere, will multiply there without obstacles from the others and live there in numerous troops; it will have successively created new needs which will stimulate its industry and gradually perfect its methods and capabilities.

4. This preeminent race will gain an absolute supremacy over all the others.

will have succeeded at putting between itself and the most perfect animals some difference and, in one way or another, a considerable distance.

Thus, the race of the most perfect quadarumanes will have been able to become dominant, to change its habits as a result of the absolute empire which it will have taken over the others and of new needs, and from that to acquire progressively modifications in its organic structure and numerous new capabilities, to restrict the most perfect of the other races to the state at which they have arrived; and to introduce very remarkable distinctions between itself and the latter.

The Orang of Angola (Simia troglodytes, Lin.) is the most perfect of animals.

It is much more so than the orang of the Indies (Simia satyrus, Lin.), which has been called the orangutang.

Yet their organic structure is far inferior to man in coporeal faculties and in intelligence (3).

They hold themselves upright on many occasions.

But they have not developed this into a sustained habit.

Their organic structure has not been sufficiently modified.

Standing up is still very inconvenient for them.

When a pressing danger obliges them to run away, the animal immediately falls back onto its 4 limbs.

According to my theory, this reveals its true origin because it is forced to abandon this strange bearing which is foreign to it.

This upright bearing is foreign to the animal, since it makes less use of it when it moves about .

Hence its organic structure is less appropriate for such a stance.

But because that stance is easier for man, is it entirely natural to him?

For man who, through the sustained habits of the individuals in his species over a long sequence of generations,

A man who has gained the ability of holding himself upright as he moves will find this stance tiring.

• He can only sustain this for a limited time and with aid of the contractions of his muscles.

If the verbebral column of the human body were to form the axis of the body and to hold the head at equilibrium, as well as the other parts, man would be able to be in a state of repose while upright.

But this is not the case.

The head does not move itself at the body’s centre of gravity, that the chest and the stomach, as well as the viscera which these cavities enclose, weigh down almost totally on the front part of the vertebral column, that this column itself rests upon an oblique base, and so on.

Thus, as Richerand observes, it is necessary that while man is standing, an active power constantly keep watch to prevent the falls which the weight and the distribution of the parts always tend to encourage in the body.

The relative weights of the head, the abdominal and thoracic viscera thus tend to pull forward that line. This makes all the parts of the body weigh on the plane which maintains it, a line which should be exactly perpendicular to this plane so that the stance is perfect.

Richerand

The following fact lends support to this assertion.

Children stand up with difficulty if:

• their heads are large
• their belly is jutting forward
• their viscera is full of fat

It is hardly at the end of their second year when they dare to trust their own powers.

They remain subject to frequent falls and have a natural tendency to reassume the condition of a quadruped.

Richerand

Physiology, vol. II, p. 268

This arrangement of parts which establishes the stance of man is an active state and thus tiring (rather than being a relaxed state).

Hence, it would reveal in man an origin analogous to that of the other mammals, if his organic structure alone were taken into considerations.

The individuals of the dominant race spread out into all the habitable places suitable for them.

Having considerably multiplied their needs as the societies which they formed became more numerous they would have had to by the same process multiply their ideas and thus to have felt the need to communicate with those like them.

This led to the necessity for them to increase and to vary to the same extent the signs appropriate for the communication of these ideas.

Thus, the individuals of this race would have had to make continual effort to create, multiply, and vary sufficiently the signs which their ideas and numerous needs rendered essential.

This is not the case with other animals.

The most perfect non-human animals live mostly in groups.

But human superiority has limited the perfectioning of their faculties.

They were chased away everywhere and relegated to wilderness areas where they are forced continuously to flee and hide.

These animals no longer form new needs, acquire new ideas.

Their ideas remain few and do not change.

And among these ideas there are very few which they would need to communicate to other individuals of the same species.

Thus, they need only very few different signs to make themselves understood to those like them.

Hence, some movements of the body or some of its parts, a few hissings and cries varied by simple vocal inflections are enough for them.

By contrast, the individuals of the dominant race already mentioned, having had a need to multiply the signs to communicate quickly their ideas (which have become more and more numerous), and not resting content with pantomime signs or the possible inflections of their voice, in order to represent this multitude of signs which has become necessary would have succeeded, by different efforts, in forming articulated sounds.

At first they would have used only a small number, combined with the inflections of their voice.

Afterwards, they would have increased and perfected them, according to the growth of their needs and to the extent that they would have made more effort to produce them.

In fact, the habitual exercise of the throat, tongue, and lips to articulate sounds would have really developed this faculty in them.

This is the origin of talking.

The distance between places where the individuals making up this race would have widened and encouraged the corruption of the signs agreed upon in order to convey each idea, from that would have originated languages, which have been diversified everywhere.

Thus, in this matter, needs alone would have achieved everything.

They would have given birth to efforts.

The organs appropriate to the articulation of sounds would have developed by their habitual use.

Such might be the reflections which one could make if man, considered here as the preeminent race in question, were not distinguished from animals except by the characteristics of his organic structure and if his origin were not different from theirs.