294 ON THE RELATIONS OF MAN 



Ing too much, hastiness, or want of opportunity for due deliberation, 

 cannot now be pleaded in extenuation of any shortcomings ; for 

 the propositions cited were repeated two years afterwards in the 

 Reade Lecture, delivered before so grave a body as the University 

 of Cambridge, in 1859. 



When the assertions, which I have italicised in the above extract, 

 first came under my notice, I was not a little astonished at so flat 

 a contradiction of the doctrines current among well-informed 

 anatomists ; but, not unnaturally imagining that the deliberate 

 statements of a responsible person must have some foundation in 

 fact, I deemed it my duty to investigate the subject anew before 

 the time at which it would be my business to lecture thereupon 

 came round. The result of my inquiries was to prove that Mr. 

 Owen's three assertions, that " the third lobe, the posterior horn 

 of the lateral ventricle, and the hippocampus minor," are " peculiar 

 to the genus Homo" are contrary to the plainest facts. I com- 

 municated this conclusion to the students of my class ; and then, 

 having no desire to embark in a controversy which could not 

 redound to the honour of British science, whatever its issue, I 

 turned to more congenial occupations. 



The time speedily arrived, however, when a persistence in this 

 reticence would have involved me in an unworthy paltering with 

 truth. 



At the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, in 1860, 

 Professor Owen repeated these assertions in my presence, and, of 

 course, I immediately gave them a direct and unqualified contra- 

 diction, pledging myself to justify that unusual procedure elsewhere. 

 I redeemed that pledge by publishing, in the January number of the 

 Natural History Review for 1861, an article wherein the truth of 

 the three following propositions was fully demonstrated (1. c. p. 71) : 



" 1. That the third lobe is neither peculiar to, nor characteristic 

 of, man, seeing that it exists in all the higher quadrumana." 



" 2. That the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle is neither 

 peculiar to, nor characteristic of, man, inasmuch as it also exists 

 in the higher quadrumana." 



" 3. That the hippocampus minor is neither peculiar to, nor 

 characteristic of, man, as it is found in certain of the higher quad- 

 rumana." 



Furthermore, this paper contains the following paragraph (p. 76) : 



" And lastly, Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik (op. cit. p. 271), 

 though they particularly note that ' the lateral ventricle is distin- 

 guished from that of Man by the very defective proportions of 

 the posterior cornu, wherein only a stripe is visible as an indication 

 of the hippocampus minor ; ' yet the Figure 4, in their second 

 Plate, shows that this posterior cornu is a perfectly distinct and 

 unmistakeable structure, quite as large as it often is in Man. It 

 is the more remarkable that Professor Owen should have over- 

 looked the explicit statement and figure of these authors, as it is 

 quite obvious, on comparison of the figures, that his woodcut of the 



