Note 58 — VII. BY-PATHS IN THE DOMAIN OF BIOLOGY:
Reading edition
The common statement of travellers as to savages having great prehensile power in the toes, has been adopted by some naturalists as indicating an approach to the apes. But this notion is founded on a complete misconception. Savages pick up objects with their feet, it is true, but always by a lateral motion of the toes, which we should equally possess if we never wore shoes or stockings. In no savage have I ever seen the slightest approach to opposability of the great toe, which is the essential distinguishing feature of apes; nor have I ever seen it stated that any variation in this direction has been detected in the anatomical structure of the foot of the lower races.