240 Aiinnal Report of the Coimcil. 



retired from his office of Director in 1883. The great 

 scientific mistake of his life lay in allowing himself to 

 be led into the dreamland of the Physio-philosophy 

 of Oken. Two of the most laborious of his works, his 

 " Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton " and " On the 

 Nature of limbs," were devoted to building up a philosophy 

 which is no longer accepted. At the same time he never 

 accepted the philosophy of Darwin, neither did he replace it 

 by any other in the least degree calculated to take its place. 

 He did not refuse to devote time to social laboui^s of a 

 more popular kind. Thus, he was one of the Com- 

 missioners for preparing the Great Exhibition of 185 1. 

 From 1843 to 1846 he took part in the Commission of 

 Enquiry into the Health of Towns. On other occasions 

 he served on Commissions of Enquiry into the Meat 

 Supply and the Health of the Metropolis, &c. He reported 

 on the drainage and water supply of Lancaster, his native 

 town. The Queen and Prince Albert placed at his disposal 

 an excellent mansion in Kensington, for which, however, at 

 Owen's own request, Sheen Lodge, in Richmond, the home 

 of his future years, was substituted. As we have seen, 

 at an early age he received the fellowship of the Royal 

 Society, followed at a later date by the award both of 

 a Royal and a Copley Medal. The Queen knighted 

 and conferred upon him the Order of the Bath. From 

 Prussia he received the "Ordre pour le Merite,'' and Louis 

 Napoleon sent him the Grand Cross of the Legion of 

 Honour. The French Institute made him one of its 

 eight foreign Associates. The King of Italy conferred upon 

 him the order of St. Sulspice and St. Lazare, and the late 

 Emperor of Brazil honoured him after a similar fashion. 

 The names of the scientific societies of Europe who 

 enrolled him amongst their Foreign members was legion. 

 After his long and distinguished life he died on the 20th of 

 last December, and in accordance with his own wishes he 



