68 SIR WILLIAM FLOWER 



what diverted from the peaceful and progressive 

 study of the phenomena which the theory of evolution 

 illuminated, by the feeling and temporary aberration 

 of sympathy caused in some minds by an imperfect 

 appreciation of what it all meant. If minds agitated 

 by the question, " Is man an ape or an angel," 

 chose to engage themselves in the contemplation 

 of Flower's object lessons in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 

 they were pleasantly and soothingly convinced that 

 a good many years would probably elapse before 

 we had learnt the complete premises necessary for 

 speculating whether we were either the one or 

 the other. 



It has been mentioned that Flower did not 

 greatly occupy his time with the articulation or 

 preparation of the immense number of illustrative 

 objects at Lincoln's Inn Fields. He mainly con- 

 fined himself to initiating and explaining what 

 he wanted done. Sir William always and uni- 

 formly gave credit to his early assistants in this 

 department. In an address at South Kensington 

 in July 1876 he said that "Great advances in the 

 art of preparing specimens for the purposes of 

 teaching had been made at the Royal College of 

 Surgeons by his namesake, Mr. Flower, who had 

 worked at the Museum for so many years, and was 

 by far the most skilful skeleton-maker in Europe. 

 Mr. Flower and himself had invented a method of 

 articulating skeletons in such a manner that any 

 single bone, or set of bones, could be removed from 



