Ellsworth Huntington, the most recent and
careful student of the effect of climate on man,[15] finds that climate
has a great deal of influence on man's energy, but as far as inherited
traits in general are concerned, he is constantly led to remark how
little heredity is capable of being changed.
Most members of the white race have little toes that are partly
atrophied, and considerably deformed. In many cases one of the joints
has undergone ankylosis--that is, the bones have coalesced. It is
confidently alleged that this is due to the inheritance of the effects
of wearing tight shoes through many centuries. When it is found that the
prehistoric Egyptians, who knew not tight shoes, suffered from the same
defect in a similar degree, one's confidence in this kind of evidence is
much diminished.
The retrogression of the little toe in man is probably to be explained
like the degeneration of the hind leg of the whale, as a result of the
excess of deteriorating variations which, when not eliminated by natural
selection, lead to atrophy. Since man began to limit the use of his feet
to walking on the ground, the little toe has had much less value to him.
The feet of Chinese women offer another illustration along this line.
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