20 NATURAL SCIENCE. Jan.. 



the ear-nerve loses itself ; and therefore as distinct an organ from a 

 vertebral element as is any other viscus, or as is the eye-hole itself.' 

 Although Oken does not in this essay formally admit a fourth 

 vertebra anterior to the eye vertebra, he recognises the vertebral 

 structure as being carried out rudimentarily or evanescently by the 

 vomer ... or the nasal bones." 



Now we need hardly say that we do not give this citation with 

 any intention of implying that the views of either Oken or Owen are 

 true ; but merely to show that the English naturalist did justice to 

 his German predecessor — even to his suggestions with respect to the 

 vomer and nasals, which are just those which Sir Richard Owen 

 advocated. 



In the present day both Oken's and Owen's archetypes have be- 

 come obsolete, and we suppose no one now maintains them. Never- 

 theless, when they were first promulgated here, they produced no 

 slight effect, they drew many thoughtful minds towards questions of 

 biology, and they roused an antagonism which has also led to 

 much valuable work. We believe them to have been, in these 

 different ways, very serviceable to science, but we also think that they 

 embodied, or were the mistaken outcome of, some deep and 

 very significant truths which are, in general, far too little appreciated, 

 a wave of sentiment, and the influence of a party (which could do 

 much to make or mar a young man's progress), having combined to 

 indispose many minds towards a dispassionate appreciation of them. 



Personally, well disposed as we have always been to Owen, the 

 Hunterian Professor, on account of much courtesy and kindness 

 shown to us by him, we never accepted his representations in any 

 detail, and were quickly convinced that he was quite mistaken as to 

 his " Petrosal " in the lower Vertebrates. Although adopted by not 

 a few persons, some of his views invited hostile criticism, and were 

 soon attacked as being inconsistent, as they obviously were, with the 

 facts of development. It was urged that the skull was made up 

 of modified vertebrae. Its vertebrate character should be plainest 

 in its earliest and least modified stages, and yet such stages had 

 no resemblance to vertebrae at all. It was also pointed out that 

 basilar cartilage and trabeculae cranii were unlike anything to be 

 found in the incipient vertebral column, the segmentation of which 

 was sufficiently accounted for by the necessary action of pressures 

 and strains on any frequently flexed cylindrical body. A flood of 

 ridicule and sarcasm was poured on Owen's hypothesis, and the 

 doctrine of archetypal ideas was supposed to have received its coup 

 de grace from the theory of " Evolution," and above all, from that of 

 *• Natural Selection." 



But Sir Richard Owen did much more than propound a modified 

 Okenian theory of the skeleton, and indeed it would be a great in- 

 justice (an injustice which, nevertheless, has been ruthlessly per- 

 petrated) to represent his theory as mere Okenism ; for Owen gives no 



