216 Professor Owen's Teleology of the Skeleton of Fishes. 



the country as well as the towns, carrying off a tenth, a fifth, or a third 

 of the inhabitants. The more common and milder diseases, which 

 readily submit to proper treatment, often acquire the greatest viru- 

 lence, through neglect and mismanagement, till they yield only to the 

 great destroyer in the extent of their ravages. 



The unskilfulness of all agricultural operations is not entitled to 

 a place among these causes of decay in an ample and fertile region, 

 where the most imperfect tillage can hardly fail to supply the wants 

 of so scanty a population, yet the mere substitution of the plough of 

 Palestine for the improved instrument used in England and Belgium 

 would diminish the productions of the earth in those countries one- 

 third in amount, and overspread the land with poverty and famine. — 

 Olins Travels in Egypt, Ai^abia Petrcea, and the Holy Land, 

 vol. ii., p. 427. 



Teleology of the Skeleton of Fishes. By Professor OWEN. 



To determine the parts of the vertebrate skeleton which are most 

 constant ; to trace their general, serial, and special homologies, under 

 all the various modifications by which they are adapted to the seve- 

 ral modes and spheres, and grades of existence of the different spe- 

 cies, should be the great aim of osteological science ; as being that 

 which will reduce its facts to the most natural order, and their expo- 

 sition to the simplest expressions. It is impossible, in pursuing the 

 requisite comparisons upwards through the higher organized classes, 

 not to recognize the close and interesting analogies between the ma- 

 ture states and forms of ichthyic organs, and the embryonic condi- 

 tion of the same parts, in the higher species. But these analogies 

 have been frequently overstated, or presented under unqualified me- 

 taphorical expressions, calculated to mislead the student, and to ob- 

 struct the attainment of true conceptions of their nature. We should 

 lose some most valuable fruits of anatomical study were we to limit 

 the application of its facts to the elucidation of the unity of the 

 vertebrate type of organization, or if we were to rest satisfied with 

 the detection of the analogies between the embryos of higher and the 

 adults of lower species in the scale of being. We must go further, 

 and in a different direction, to gain a view of the beautiful and fruitful 

 physiological principle of the relation of each adaptation to its appro- 

 priate function, and if we would avoid the danger of mistaken ana- 

 logy for homology or identity, and of attributing to inadequate hypo- 

 thetical secondary causes the manifestations of Design, of Supreme 

 Wisdom and Beneficence, which the various forms of the animal crea- 

 tion offer to our contemplation. 



To revert, then, to the skeleton of Fishes, with a view to the teleo- 

 logical application of the facts determined by study of this complex 



