240 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 



justify the high place in the scientific world which Owen so 

 long occupied. If I mistake not, the historian of comparative 

 anatomy and of paleontology will always assign to Owen a 

 place next to, and hardly lower than, that of Cuvier, who was 

 practically the creator of those sciences in their modern shape ; 

 and whose works must always remain models of excellence in 

 their kind. . . ." 



Owen's contributions to "philosophical anatomy "are 

 shown to be of far less value, though even here it is high 

 praise to say : — 



"The theory of the continuity of germ-plasm of Weismann, 

 for example, is practically the same as Owen's, if we omit from 

 the latter the notion that the endowment with ' spermatic force ' 

 is the indispensable condition of proliferation." 



The sketch of the history of anatomical science given 

 in this chapter is of absorbing interest, and many 

 passages are striking on account of the ideas contained, 

 or their beauty of style, or both. Thus, of flowers : — 



" Flowers are the primers of the morphologist ; those who 

 run may read in them uniformity of type amidst endless diversity, 

 singleness of plan with complex multiplicity of detail. As a 

 musician might say, every natural group of flowering plants is a 

 sort of visible fugue, wandering about a central theme which is 

 never forsaken, however it may, momentarily, cease to be 

 apparent." 



Of Goethe's character : — 



*' Like all the really great men of literature, Goethe added 

 some of the qualities of the man of science to those of the artist, 

 especially the habit of careful and patient observation of Nature." 



And of those Science needs or does not need : — 



" Science has need of servants of very various qualifications ; 

 of artistic constructors no less than of men of business ; of people 

 to design her palaces and of others to see that the materials are 

 sound and well fitted together ; of some to spur investigators 



