XVI] ON THE SKELETON AS A WHOLE 713 



cartilage, ligaments, membranes, are fashioned out of the same 

 primordial tissue, and come into being -pari jmssu, with the bones 

 themselves. The entire fabric has its soft parts and its hard, its 

 rigid and its flexible parts ; but until we disrupt and dismember 

 its bony, gristly and fibrous parts, one from another, it exists 

 simply as a "skeleton," as one integral and individual whole. 



A bridge was once upon a time a loose heap of pillars and rods 

 and rivets of steel. But the identity of these is lost, just as if 

 they were fused into a solid mass, when once the bridge is built; 

 their separate functions are only to be recognised and analysed 

 in so far as we can analyse the stresses, the tensions and the 

 pressures, which affect this part of the structure or that; and 

 these forces are not themselves separate entities, but are the 

 resultants of an analysis of the whole field of force. Moreover 

 when the bridge is broken it is no* longer a bridge, and all its 

 strength is gone. So is it precisely with the skeleton. In it is 

 reflected a field of force : and keeping pace, as it were, in action 

 and interaction with this field of force, the whole skeleton and 

 every part thereof, down to the minute intrinsic structure of the 

 bones themselves, is related in form and in position to the lines 

 of force, to the resistances it has to encounter; for by one of 

 the mysteries of biology, resistance begets resistance, and where 

 pressure falls there growth springs up in strength to meet it. 

 And, pursuing the same train of thought, we see that all this is 

 true not of the skeleton alone but of the whole fabric of the body. 

 Muscle and bone, for instance, are inseparably associated and 

 connected ; they are moulded one with another ; they come into 

 being together, and act and react together*. We may study 

 them apart, but it is as a concession to our weakness and to the 

 narrow outlook of our minds. We see, dimly perhaps, but yet 

 with all the assurance of conviction, that between muscle and 

 bone there can be no change in the one but it is correlated with 

 changes in the other; that through and through they are linked 

 in indissoluble association ; that they are only separate entities 



* John Hunter was seldom wrong ; but I cannot believe that he was right when 

 he said (Scientific Works, ed. Owen, i, p. 371), "The bones, in a mechanical view, 

 appear to be the first that are to be considered. We can study their shape, 

 connexions, number, uses, etc., without considering any other part of the hody.^' 



