This great change depends upon an alteration in the axis of the body. The first fishes, like present fishes, were horizontal animals, but gradually the axis has become altered, in the main line of progress, until the semi-erect apes yield to man the erect, or “man the erected,” as Stevenson called him. The son of horizontal animals, he is himself vertical: the “pronograde” has become “orthograde.” Thus the phrase, “the ascent of man,” may be read in two senses. This capital fact has depended upon a shifting of the centre of gravity of the body, which in adult man lies behind the hip-joints, whereas in his ancestors and in the small baby (still in the four-footed stage) it lies in front of the hip-joints. Thus, whilst other creatures tend naturally to fall forwards, so that they must use their fore-limbs for support and locomotion, the whole body of man above the hip-joints tends naturally to fall backwards, being prevented from doing so by two great ligaments which lie in front of the hip-joints and have a unique development in man. The complete erection of the spine means that the skull, instead of being suspended in front, is now poised upon the top of the spinal column. The field of vision is enormously enlarged, and it is possible to sweep a great extent of horizon at a moment's notice. But the complete discharge of the fore-limbs from the function of locomotion has far vaster consequences, especially as they now assume the function of educating their master, the brain, and enabling him to employ them for higher and higher purposes. Thus, when we ask ourselves whether there is any further goal for physical evolution, the answer is that none can be seen. So far as physical evolution is concerned the goal has been attained with the erect attitude. Future changes in the anatomy of man will not be positive but negative. There doubtless will be a certain lightening of the ship, the casting overboard of inherited superfluities, but that is all: except that we may hope for certain modifications in the way of increasing the adaptation of the body to the erect attitude, which at present bears very hardly in many ways upon the body of man, and much more so upon the body of woman. Thus race-culture will certainly not aim at the breeding of physical freaks of any kind, nor yet at such things as stature. It must begin by clearly recognising what are the factors which in man possess supreme survival-value, and it must aim at their reinforcement rather than at the maintenance of those factors which, of dominant value in lower forms of life, have been superseded in him. A few words will suffice to show in what fashion man has already shed vital characters which, superfluous and burdensome for him, have in former times been of the utmost survival-value.