2 68 Likenesses; or, Philosophical Anatomy 



Amongst the results of the recognition of such innate 

 powers and tendencies are an increased support to Teleology 

 and a rehabilitation of ' Philosophical Anatomy.' With such 

 recognition, indeed, it is much less difficult, than without it, 

 to conceive (if ' purpose ' in nature be recognised at all) that 

 results which become manifest only at last, and after com- 

 plex changes which do not seem to foreshadow them, may 

 have been latent and pre-ordained from the first. 



When ' Philosophical Anatomy ' fell in general esteem, in 

 the manner already related, it did not fall alone. Teleology 

 — or the doctrine of final causes — had been a favourite 

 subject with Professor Owen; and with Teleology, the doc- 

 trine of Evolution appeared to many to wage a battle a 

 owtrance. It was not that this or that explanation was 

 disputed ; but the whole conception fell into utter disesteem, 

 and the ' purposelessness ' of the organic world (which 

 became with some persons almost an article of faith) has 

 come to form a special branch of study, with its special 

 scientific title of ' dysteleology.' 



This materialistic and atheistic spirit of negation has 

 been, however, modified, and seems destined to be more 

 affected hereafter, by that very study which at first came so 

 aptly to its aid. 



The further prosecution of embryological research, seem- 

 ingly so fatal to ' Philosophical Anatomy ' in its earher form, 

 is calculated to have this anti-materialistic effect. The mazy 

 complexity of development changes, the half-revealed affini- 

 ties, thus seen to radiate in all directions, have convinced 

 more than one of our most eminent observers that no series 

 of haphazard changes is thus offered to their ken, but that 

 they have before them the evidences of an orderly and 

 predetermined evolution. One such observer, at least, has 

 been thus turned from crass materialism, if not to theism, 

 yet to the behef in a Pantheistic Demiurge ever weaving 



