66 Thomas Henry Huxley 



actual development of the skull in the individual. He shewed 

 that the foundations of the skull and of the backbone were laid 

 down in a fashion quite different, and that it was impossible to 

 regard both skull and backbone as modifications of a common 

 type laid down right along the axis of the body. The spinal 

 column and the skull start from the same primitive condition, 

 whence they immediately begin to diverge. It may be true to 

 say that there is a primitive identity of structure between the 

 spinal or vertebral column and the skull ; but it is no more 

 true that the adult skull is a modified vertebral column than it 

 would be to afl&rm that the vertebral column is a modified 

 skull." 



Since this famous lecture, a number of distinguished 

 anatomists have studied the development of the skull 

 more fully ; but they have not departed from the meth- 

 ods of investigation laid down by Huxley, and their 

 conclusions have differed only in greater elaboration of 

 detail from the broad lines laid down by him. Apart 

 from its direct scientific value, this lecture was of im- 

 portance as marking the place to which Huxley had 

 attained in the scientific world. Two years later, it is 

 true, the lyOndon Times, referring to a famous debate 

 at a meeting of the British Association at Oxford, spoke 

 of him as " a Mr. Huxley " ; but in the scientific world 

 he was accepted as the leader of the younger anatomists, 

 and as one at least capable of rivalling Owen, who was 

 then at the height of his fame. The Croonian Lecture 

 was in a sense a deliberate challenge to Owen, and in 

 these days before Darwin, to challenge Owen was to 

 claim equality with the greatest name in anatomical 

 science. 



