3t8 Comparative Anatomy — Its History, Aim, and Method 



quired merely that the imaginary "archetype" be replaced by a real 

 "common ancestor" — but in some instances the common ancestor had 

 to be, at least tentatively, an imaginary "missing link." The existing 

 "natural classifications," based, as proposed by Linnaeus, on general 

 structure, were revised, without great difficulty, to become systems 

 based on genealogic relationship. 



Especially in relation to vertebrate anatomy, outstanding figures 

 in the latter part of the century were Owen, Huxley, and Gegenbaur. 

 Richard Owen (1804-92) was, in a sense, the Cuvier of the period. In 



1831 he visited Cuvier in Paris and 



II Neural spine examined his anatomic collections. 



ZygapophysisfSr.. Owen's great three-volume work 



_#A Neurapophysis " Comparative Anatomy and Physi- 



D ' ap0phy ^e ^S)o^ pieurapo P hysis °logy of Vertebrates" and his 



Parapophysisc-2l=^D "Odontography," a monograph on 



%^Haemapophysis the teeth of vertebrates, are ana- 



ygapop ysis- tomicclassicsand vast storehouses of 



|| aema spme accurate information. He made im- 



Ideai typical vertebra portant contributions to paleontol- 



Fig. 282. Archetype vertebra, ogy by his studies of fossil mammals 



(After Owen: "Comparative Anatomy of Australia and the extinct giant 



and Physiology of Vertebrates " Lon- bird of New Zea]and> But 



don, Longmans, Ureen & L.O., Ltd.) . 



unlike Cuvier, Owen was a transcen- 



dentalist. He constructed an elaborate archetype for the entire verte- 

 brate skeleton. Figure 282 represents his ideal vertebra. It is a composite 

 possessing everything that any vertebra has, and it is a vertebra that 

 no animal ever possessed. He firmly believed in Goethe's vertebral 

 theory of the skull and elaborated on it. But Owen's ideas included 

 none of the fantastic vagaries which discredited Oken's views. Owen 

 may fairly be described as the greatest of the transcendentalists, cer- 

 tainly the sanest of them, and probably the last of them. It is true that 

 a more or less definite current of transcendental thinking can be traced 

 through anatomy down to the present but, since Owen, no more great 

 "archetypes" have been constructed and probably none ever will be. 

 Huxley made important contributions to anatomy and paleontol- 

 ogy, as well as to the philosophy of evolution. One achievement, mainly 

 on embryologic grounds, was his demolition of Goethe's theory that 

 the skull is composed of modified vertebrae. Gegenbaur (1826-1903) 

 was the foremost German anatomist of the period. His " Vergleichende 

 Anatomie der Wirbelthiere " and his other works are not only indis- 

 pensable sources of factual information but contribute much to the 

 clarification of the theories and concepts of the science as viewed from 

 the standpoint of evolution. 



