544 Reviews. | July, 
Although much has been done in these lectures to endeavour 
to supply an exact conception of the morphology of the vertebrate 
cranium, yet the author has evidently been unable to find a place for 
many of the bones existing there. We may mention, amongst others, 
the bones marked 1,2, and 38, in the pike’s skull, the supra-orbital and 
sub-orbital bones, and the transverse bone, the morphological position 
of which he leaves quite undetermined. Looking then at these and 
other residual quantities still unaccounted for, the anatomist cannot 
accept, nor do we think it is intended by Mr. Huxley that he should 
accept, many of the statements advanced in these lectures as furnish- 
ing a final settlement of that “‘much vexed question,” the morphology 
of the cranium. There is much work yet to be done before we can 
hope to arrive at anything like a definite conclusion respecting it. 
The lectures on the vertebrate cranium ought, however, to.be read 
and carefully thought over by every anatomist, not merely because 
they record the opinions of so distinguished a teacher as Mr. Huxley, 
but because, from the singularly lucid way in which one of the most 
complex subjects in the whole range of anatomical science has been 
treated, they may well serve as a model to be studied by future writers. 
We have felt justified in bestowing a large amount of space and 
consideration upon Professor Huxley’s book (which should, in reality, 
have formed two distinct works), because we believe it will take a 
high place in the classical scientific literature of our country, and will 
be handed down to posterity as one of the most comprehensive treatises 
on some at least of the subjects with which it deals; but along with its 
valuable information, and excellent illustrations, it will also transmit 
the fact, too well known in our day, that its author entertains feelings 
of bitter hostility against his most eminent. contemporary, Professor 
Owen, for there is hardly a chapter in the work in which these feelings 
are not manifested. 
It is, no doubt, true (and is very much to be regretted), that in 
Professor Huxley’s earlier days, and even more recently, he was pained 
by unfair criticisms upon his anatomical investigations, criticisms 
which were all the more ungenerous, because the object of them was 
then a young man struggling for a position amongst men of science ; 
but is it any more creditable to retaliate upon his commentator, by 
characterizing his mistaken views as mendacious ? 
It matters little to us, whether or not the strife continues; and 
as far as the public are concerned, they either take it as a matter of 
course that Professor Owen will be attacked whenever Professor 
Huxley speaks or writes ; or they crowd to the lecture hall with the 
same feelings as they would go to witness a prize fight ; all we can 
say is, that it imparts to the non-scientific world a false estimate of 
the spirit which exists amongst scientific men, a very false estimate 
indeed, and what chiefly concerns us as reviewers is that it does great 
permanent injury and reduces the intrinsic value of an author’s works, 
for it is difficult to accredit a writer with strict impartiality, who can- 
not exercise a little control over his feelings. ‘These remarks are made 
in the most friendly spirit; and we hope shortly to have from the pen 
