519 



the last may be answered in the negative ; and we propose to give 

 reasons why it should be answered in the negative. 



In so far as his theory of the skeleton is concernod, Professor 

 Owen is an avowed disciple of Plato. At the conclusion of his 

 Archetype and Homo toy ies of the Vertebrate Skeleton^ he quotes ap- 

 provingly the Platonic hypothesis of /^ext, "a sort of models, or 

 moulds in which matter is cast, and whicii regularly produce the 

 same nimiber and diversity of species." The vertebrate form in 

 general (see diagram of the Archetijpus), or else the form of each 

 kind of vertebrate animal (see p. 172, where this seems implied). 

 Professor Owen conceives to exist as an "idea" — an "arche- 

 typal exemplar on which it has pleased the Creator to frame 

 certain of his living creatures." Whether Professor Owen holds 

 that the typical vertebra also exists as an " idea," is not so 

 certain. From the title given to his figure of the " ideal typical 

 vertebra," it would seem that he does ; and at p. 40 of his 

 Nature of Limbs, and indeed throughout his general argument, this 

 supposition is implied. But on the last two pages of the Archetype 

 and Homologies, it is distinctly alleged that " the repetition of simi- 

 lar segments in a vertebral column, and of similar elements in a 

 vertebral segment, is analogous to the repetition of similar crystals 

 as the result of polarizing force in the growth of an inorganic 

 body ; " it is pointed out that, " as we descend the scale of animal 

 life, the forms of the repeated parts of the skeleton approach more 

 and more to geometrical figures ; " and it is inferred that " the 

 Platonic l^iu. or specific organizing principle or force, would seem 

 to be in antagonism with the general polarizing force, and to sub- 

 due and mould it in subserviency to the exigencies of the resulting 

 specific form." If Professor Owen's doctrine is to be understood 

 as expressed in these closing paragi-aphs of his Archetype and Homo- 

 logies — if he considers that " the lo^a. " " w^hich produces the diver- 

 sity of form belonging to living bodies of the same materials," is 

 met by the " counter-operation " of " the polarizing force pervading 

 all space," which produces " the similarity of forms, the repetition 

 of parts, the signs of unity of organization," and which is " subdued " 

 as we ascend " in the scale of being ; " then we may pass on with 

 the remark that the hypothesis is too cumbrous and involved to 

 have much vraisemblance. If, on the other hand, Professor Oweu 

 holds, as every reader would suppose from the general tenor of his 

 reasonings, that not only does there exist an archetypal or ideal 

 vertebrate skeleton, but that there also exists an archetypal or 

 ideal vertebra; then he carries the Platonic hypothesis much 

 further than Plato does. Plato's argument, that before any species 

 of object was created it must have existed as an idea of the Creative 

 Intelligence, and that hence all objects of such species must bt 



