History of Comparative Anatomy 



343 



Fig. 277. Cuvier (1769-1832) 

 at the zenith of his power. (Cour- 

 tesy, Locy: "Biology and Its 

 Makers," New York, Henry Holt 

 & Co., Inc.) 



in Paris on February 15, 1830, is one of the classics of biology. Cuvier 

 had the popular side of the argument and the public opinion of his 

 time awarded him the victory over the 

 evolutionists. 



Meanwhile Goethe, working in 

 Germany, was quite apart from the 

 intellectual turmoil of Paris. He appar- 

 ently did not even know of Lamarck's 

 writings. In 1790 he published his 

 "Metamorphosis of Plants." His work 

 as an anatomist was concerned mainly 

 with comparative osteology. He gave 

 special attention to the skull and is 

 credited with the discovery of the ob- 

 scure premaxillary bones in the human 

 upper jaw. His ideas of "unity of 

 type," of vestigial organs, and of the 

 derivation of "higher" from "lower" 

 forms of life run closely parallel to, 

 and in some points anticipate, the ideas 

 of the French evolutionists. 



Oken gave to biology some sound morphology and much fantastic 

 speculation. He was the most radical of the transcendentalists who 

 sought for unity of plan, or uniformity, not only among various organ- 

 isms as wholes, but among the parts of an individual organism. They 

 not only sought, but insisted upon finding, uniformity. In some in- 

 stances uniformity is an inescapable fact. In number and general rela- 

 tions of bones, the skeletons of the pectoral and pelvic appendages are 

 alike. The vertebrae of the neck, trunk, and tail all possess the same 

 general structure, differing merely as to the number and degree of 

 development of the various spines or processes which vertebrae may 

 have. But the uniformity discovered in the "vertebral theory" of the 

 skull is by no means obvious. Yet it is a possible view of the skull. Just 

 as a typical vertebra possesses a solid ventral centrum surmounted by 

 a bony arch (neural arch) enclosing the central nervous organ (spinal 

 cord), so it is possible to resolve the skull into three or four (but Goethe 

 counted six) segments, each consisting of a median ventral bone (Fig. 

 278) to which are joined other bones extending laterally and dorsally 

 to form a much-expanded "neural arch" surrounding the central nerv- 

 ous organ (brain). This idea seems to have occurred first to Goethe, by 

 whom it was fully elaborated. It was accepted by competent anatomists 

 of later times, including even one so recent as Richard Owen (1804- 

 92). It was Oken who pointed out that the human head and trunk are 



