426 ZOOLOGY. 



braces nearly the whole question of the transcendental anatomy, 

 the only form in which anatomy and zoology become a 

 science. The following observations, reprinted from my latest 

 inquiries into the laws of the transcendental in zoology, will 

 sufficiently explain this to the reader : * 



" By dissection, the dead are analysed or reduced to certain 

 assemblages of organs, holding relations, often mechanical, to 

 each other. They all perform certain functions, some of 

 which have been imperfectly guessed at ; made out in a coarse 

 way : organs of locomotion exist bones, ligaments, joints, 

 muscles, or flesh ; organs of sensation, and thought, and will ; 

 the brain and spinal marrow ; the nerves ; organs of diges- 

 tion and assimilation, the stomach and digestive tube, and 

 their appendages; lastly, organs of breathing, essential to 

 life ; the lungs, by which we draw from the air the breath of 

 life. Bloodvessels acted on by a heart carry the blood through 

 the frame. Out of this vital fluid the body is constructed, 

 repaired, formed. Now if we select any one of these organs, or 

 sets of organs, we shall find that, in one shape or another, it 

 extends through the whole range of vertebrate animals, most 

 probably through the entire range of animal life, but under a 

 shape or form no longer recognisable by our senses. A few 

 instances will suffice to explain this. There is no occasion for 

 any minute or technical exposition of facts, which are, as it 

 were, on the surface. Let us first turn our attention to the 

 skeleton. Not that this assemblage of levers proves better 

 than any other set of organs the unity of structure, the unity 

 of organization sought to be superadded by the German (and 

 Slavonian) philosophy, to the unity of plan laid down by 

 Newton ; I do not even think so well ; but' it presents mate- 

 rials easier to be handled, easier to be inspected, obtained, and 

 understood. 



" The basis of the skeleton before you, whether mere animal 

 or man, is a series of bones Jointed or articulated with each 

 other. In common language it is called the back-bone. You 

 see how violently inaccurate such a term is, when applied to 

 a series of bones perfectly distinct from each other, possessing 

 most of them a distinct mobility. These bones we call ver- 

 tebrte ; here is one of them. When studied by the surgeon 

 or medical man, it is viewed by him merely as a portion of 

 the skeleton; to the philosophic anatomist it becomes the 

 type of all vertebrate animals, of the entire skeleton, limbs 



See the Sace$ qf Men ; a Fragment. By B. Knox. Henry Renshaw, 

 London. 



