50 CLASSIFICATION OF BONES OF THE HEAD. 



conducive to a true and philosophical comprehension of 

 the vertebrate skeleton than the beginning its study in 

 man — the most modified of all vertebrate forms, and that 

 which recedes furthest from the common pattern. 

 Through an inevitable ignorance of that pattern, the 

 bones in anthropotomy are indicated only by special 

 names more or less relating to the particular forms these 

 bones happen to bear in man ; such names, when applied 

 to the tallying bones in lower animals, losing that signi- 

 ficance, and becoming arbitrary signs. Owing to the 

 frequent modification by confluence of the human bones, 

 collections of them, so united, have received a single 

 name, as e. g.^ " occipital," " temporal," &c. ; whilst their 

 constituents, which are usually distinct vertebral elements, 

 have received no names, or are defined as processes, e. g.^ 

 " condyloid process of the occipital bone," " styloid process 

 of the temporal bone," " petrous portion of the temporal 

 bone," &c. The classification, moreover, of the bones of 

 the head in Human Anatomy, viz : into those of the cra- 

 nium and those of the face, is artificial or special, and 

 consequently defective. Many bones which essentially 

 belong to the skull are wholly omitted in such classifica- 

 tion. 



In regard to the archetype of the vertebrate skeleton, 

 fishes, which were the first forms of vertebrate life intro- 

 duced into this planet, deviate the least therefrom ; and 

 according to the foregoing analysis of the bones of the 

 head, it follows that such bones are primarily divisible 

 into those of — 



The Neuroskeleton ; 

 The Splanchnoskeleton ; 

 The Dermoskeleton. 



The neuroskeletal bones are arranged in four segments, 

 called 



