INVESTIGATING ORGANIC FORMS. 210 



— they were not to despise that hypothesis, hecause it was 

 by working it out Mr. Hay had been enabled to frame this 

 diagram. They could not deny that harmonic proportion 

 was something, if they admitted the diagram to afford a 

 correct anatomical outline ; for it must exist in nature. 

 This was something like an approach to a general geomet- 

 rical inclusion of the surface of the body by the revolution 

 of triangles, and the perimeters of certain figures, including 

 certain masses of the body. If they included the general 

 mass, there was reason to expect that the outline of the sub- 

 ordinate parts would be anived at by a process of the same 

 kind. They were all produced by some law, according to 

 which the parts of the body were formed. If this law were 

 complete, they should have a formal anatomy of the body — 

 a geometrical outline, however complicated — a complex geo- 

 metry — but they must believe in it. There were no parts 

 of the body not injured — not even parts diseased — that were 

 not geometrical structures, however complex. It was only 

 after knowing these they could arrive at the law of the force. 



He had not, in this hurried manner, been able to do that 

 justice he was anxious to see done to ^Mr. Hay's not merely 

 ingenious diagram ; but by the lecture of yesterday and to-day, 

 although not yet in the exact scientific position reached with 

 regard to the shell by Professor ^Moseley, yet he was desirous 

 to show that the hannony and geometrical analysis of the 

 human body, by continuing the research, would rapidly ad- 

 vance that department of biological knowledge. 



