THE THEORY OF THE VERTEBRATE SKULL. 289 



faits, (Tune appreciation philosophique de leurs relations et 

 analogies, en un mot de l'esprit dans lequel Oken determine les 

 relations vertebrales des os du crane." — P. 158. 



And again : — 



" Quand on couimenca a apprecier la verite de la generali- 

 sation d'Oken, on se rappela, comnie c'est l'liabitude, que 



qnelqu'nn avait en tin id6e a pen pres semblable 



Mais toutes ces anticipations ne sauraient enlever a Oken le 

 merite de la premiere proposition definie d'nne theorie." — 

 P. 161. 



The space at present occupied by the proclamation of the 

 weakness of the " moral sense " of Goethe may not unfitly be 

 taken up, in the next edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," 

 by the extrication of the author of the article " Oken," from the 

 singular dilemma in which these citations place him. 



The fact is, that, so far from not having been " in any way 

 influenced" by Oken, Professor Owen's own contributions to 

 this question are the merest Okenism, remanie. In the work 

 I have cited, not a single fact, nor a single argument, can be 

 found by which the doctrine of the segmentation of the skull 

 is placed on a firmer foundation than that built by Oken. 

 Two novel speculations are indeed brought forward, the one 

 of which confuses the petrosal (in the Cuvierian sense) of the 

 lower Vertehrata with the homologue of the alisphenoid of Man, 

 and, consequently, would, if adopted, throw the whole subject 

 into hopeless chaos ; while the other — the supposition that the 

 fore limb is an appendage of the head — can only be explained 

 by that entire want of any acquaintance with, or appreciation of 

 the value of, embryology which all the writings of the same 

 author display. 



II. The great works of Spix and Bojanus contain, apart 

 from the theory which they attempted to establish, abundant 

 evidence of the unity of composition of the bony skull, but it 

 was Geoffroy St. Hilaire and, more especially, Cuvier, who 

 demonstrated that unity of organization, apart from all hypo- 

 theses, most thoroughly and completely. The fresher one's 

 study of the writings of the wilder Okenians — the more one has 



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