130 Thomas Henry Huxley 



and pelvic expansions of the cord there are similar ex- 

 pansions of the surrounding bony case. We know 

 now, from greater knowledge of its embr3'ological 

 development, that the brain contains structures quite 

 peculiar to itself, and differs from the spinal cord 

 in kind as well as in size; but, at the same time, when 

 the vertebral theory of the skull was inaugurated, em- 

 bryological knowledge and the importance of its re- 

 lation to anatomical structure were less considered. 

 What Huxley did was to show that the skull, in its 

 mode of origin and real nature, was not merely an ex- 

 panded portion of the vertebral column, but that it 

 differed from it in kind. 



The hypothesis of the vertebral structure of the skull 

 was due both to Goethe, the great German poet, and 

 Oken, a most able but somewhat mystic German anato- 

 mist. An attempt had been made by a well-known 

 Knglish anatomist to cast on Goethe the stigma of 

 having tried to rob Oken of the credit for this theory. 

 Huxley set that matter finally at rest, disproving and 

 repelling with indignation the unworthy suggestion. 

 Oken gave out his theory in 1807, and described how it 

 had been first suggested to his mind by the accident of 

 picking up a dried and battered sheep's skull, in which 

 the apparent vertebral structure was very obvious, as, 

 indeed, anyone may see at a glance. It was in 1820, 

 long after the theory had been made current, that the 

 poet first publicly narrated that in a similar way he had 

 long before come to the same conclusion ; but Huxley 

 was able to show that, although announcing it later, 

 Goethe had in reality anticipated the anatomist. A 

 passage occurs in a letter to a friend, of a date in 1790, 

 which admits of no doubt. " By the oddest happy 

 chance, my servant picked up a bit of an animal's skull 



