2 54 Likenesses; or, Philosophical Anatomy 



the skull was also made up of a series of vertebrae — much 

 altered, however, as to size and shape, from those which form 

 the spinal column. This idea, once emitted, was rapidly 

 taken up by Oken's countrymen (as at later periods they 

 have vehemently taken up the ideas of Schwann and of 

 Darwin); and Spix, Bojanus, and C. G. Carus further de- 

 veloped and modified the original idea. Nor did Oken's 

 countrymen by any means stand alone, for De Blainville and 

 Oeoffroy St.-Hilaire in France, and Goodsir, Maclise, and 

 Owen in the British Isles, more or less accepted and modified, 

 in different ways, the hypothesis propounded. Oken, indeed, 

 at once pushed his speculation to extremes : expecting, on a 

 'priori grounds, to find the whole trunk, with its appendages, 

 represented in the head. He was by no means content with 

 assimilating the skull to the backbone, but insisted on finding 

 the arms and legs, the hands and feet, even the fingers and 

 toes, of the head ; imagining that the last mentioned mem- 

 bers (fingers and toes) were represented by the teeth ! Such 

 a conception may be taken as a good example of those fanci- 

 ful notions before referred to, which, not being sustained by 

 objective facts, are surely destined, as was this, to die out and 

 to disappear. 



The vertebral theory of the skull, in an amended form, 

 became widely known in England through Professor Owen, 

 and anatomical science in this country will ever be very 

 deeply indebted to him for his attempt to familiarise the 

 English mind with ' Philosophical Anatomy,' since all must 

 at least admit that it has brought about an important 

 scientific advance, through the efforts it occasioned to sup- 

 port, to modify, or to refute it. According to Professor 

 Owen's hypothesis, the skull of every backboned animal, from 

 man to the cod-fish, was really made up of four modified 

 vertebrae, each being provided with an inferior arch, like 

 those which in the trunk are formed by the ribs. The 



