CHAP. VIII.] LIKENESSES IX ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 253 



elects to follow. Here again, however, the resulting groups 

 of likenesses cannot be freely and arbitrarily established, but 

 must follow objective reality. It is thus that fanciful notions 

 which do not respond to the realities of things have to 

 succumb and give place to conceptions which do harmonize 

 with such realities. 



Every bird and beast, every fish and insect, is formed of a 

 complex aggregation of parts which are grouped together 

 into an harmonious interdependency and have a multitude 

 of relations, amongst themselves, of different kinds. The 

 mind detects a certain number of these relations as it con 

 templates the various component parts of any individual 

 animal in different ways as it follows up different lines of 

 thought. 



These perceived relations, though subjective as relations, 

 have nevertheless an objective foundation in real parts, or 

 conditions of parts, of real wholes, and it is their correspond 

 ence with such objective foundations which gives to ideal 

 relations whatever truth they may possess. To detect the 

 most hidden laws of unity underlying the differences pre 

 sented by animal structure, is the work of &quot; Philosophical 

 Anatomy.&quot; 



Speculative and creative minds, imbued with natural know 

 ledge, have pursued with avidity this kind of Philosophical 

 inquiry. While more ordinary minds have been anatomists - 

 content with observing the facts of animal structure, the 

 few have ever tried to solve the problems of the &quot; how &quot; and 

 the &quot; why.&quot; 



An inquiry of this kind into the nature of the skeleton is 

 the anatomical question, which has specially occupied Goethe, 

 Oken, Spix, Cams, De Blainville, Geoffrey St. Hilaire, and 

 Owen. It may not be uninteresting to consider whether the 

 attempt to solve such problems is, as so many persons have 

 come to believe, an altogether vain one ; and if it does not 

 appear to be a vain pursuit, then to inquire what is the 

 nature of the answer which reason and observation combine 

 to furnish. 



