iv NATURE TO TELL ITS STORY 55 



in every case the specimens were easily seen and 

 examined. As one visitor in the old days remarked, 

 " Before I could only look up at them on their 

 pedestals ; now I feel that I could even converse 

 with them." But even so there was no means of 

 examining the portions of the frame separately. 

 To make this possible they were re-set, so that 

 each bone could be detached, examined, and re- 

 placed. It became at once possible to detach the 

 shoulder of an antelope, for example, in order to 

 compare or contrast it with that of a horse, or of a 

 swimming animal, or a burrowing animal, and by 

 merely handling the parts of the skeleton, learners 

 were enabled to gain a truer knowledge of facts as 

 a basis for theory. 



The " point of view " always limits men's know- 

 ledge of anatomy as well as of other things, and as 

 there are many people who cannot readily recognise 

 a map of India or Scotland if presented to them 

 upside down or sideways, so it would be quite 

 possible for students of the shape of bones, muscles, 

 or ligaments to make mistakes about "the wrong 

 side of them," i.e. the side which was not commonly 

 presented to them in specimens. Flower took this 

 into consideration, and was at the utmost pains to 

 let students learn all sides, and so to get true views 

 without ever forming the erroneous ones which a 

 stereotyped aspect of presentation naturally causes. 

 He knew that in what forms the basis of the medical 

 art, book-learning alone was insufficient, but that 



