PHYSIOLOGY AND COMPARATIVE ANATOMY. 643 



way, the admission of a new view as to Unity of Plan will almost 

 necessarily displace or modify some of the old views respecting Final 

 Causes. 



. But though the view of Final Causes is displaced, it is not obli- 

 terated; and especially if the advocate of Purpose is also ready to admit 

 visible correspondences which have not a discoverable object, as well 

 as contrivances which have. And in truth, how is it possible for the 

 student of anatomy to shut his eyes to either of these two evident as- 

 pects of nature ? The arm and hand of man are made for taking and 

 holding, the wing of the sparrow is made for flying ; and each is adapt- 

 ed to its end with subtle and manifest contrivance. There is plainly 

 Design. But the arm of man and the wing of the sparrow correspond 

 to each other in the most exact manner, bone for bone. Where is the 

 Use or the Purpose of this correspondence ? If it be said that there 

 may be a purpose though we do not see it, that is granted. But Final 

 Causes for us are contrivances of which we see the end; and nothing 

 is added to the evidence of Design by the perception of a unity of plan 

 which in no way tends to promote the design. 



It may be said that the design appears in the modification of the 

 plan in special ways for special purposes ; that the vertebral plan of 

 an animal being given, the fore limbs are modified in Man and in Spar- 

 row, as the nature and life of each require. And this is truly said ; 

 and is indeed the truth which we are endeavoring to bring into view : 

 that there are in such speculations, two elements ; one given, the 

 other to be worked out from our examination of the case ; the datum 

 and the problem ; the homology and the teleology. 



Mr. Owen, who has done so much for the former of these portions 

 of our knowledge, has also been constantly at the same time contri- 

 buting to the other. While he has been aiding our advances towards 



o o 



the Unity of Nature, he has been ever alive to the perception of an 

 Intelligence which pervades Nature. While his morphological doc- 

 trines have moved the point of view from which he sees Design, they 

 have never obscured his view of it, but, on the contrary, have led him 

 to present it to his readers in new and striking aspects. Thus he has 

 pointed out the final purposes in the different centres of ossification of 

 the long bones of the limbs of mammals, and shown how and why 

 they differ in this respect from reptiles (Archetype, p. 104). And in 

 this way he has been able to point out the insufficiency of the rule laid 

 down both by Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Cuvier, for ascertaining the 

 true number of bones in each species. 



