A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



ence the forms and connections of the vertebrae and 

 other bones constituting the trunk of the body, to fit 

 them for flexibility and readiness of motion in all di- 

 rections. The bones also of the nose, of the orbit, and 

 of the ears require certain forms and structures to fit 

 them for giving perfection to the senses of smell, sight, 

 and hearing, so necessary to animals of prey. In short, 

 the shape and structure of the teeth regulate the forms 

 of the condyle, of the shoulder-blade, and of the claws, 

 in the same manner as the equation of a curve regu- 

 lates all its other properties; and as in regard to any 

 particular curve all its properties may be ascertained 

 by assuming each separate property as the foundation 

 of a particular equation, in the same manner a claw, a 

 shoulder-blade, a condyle, a leg or arm bone, or any 

 other bone separately considered, enables us to dis- 

 cover the description of teeth to which they have be- 

 longed ; and so also reciprocally we may determine the 

 forms of the other bones from the teeth. Thus com- 

 mencing our investigations by a careful survey of any 

 one bone by itself, a person who is sufficiently master 

 of the laws of organic structure may, as it were, recon- 

 struct the whole animal to which that bone belonged." * 



We have already pointed out that no one is quite 

 able to perform the necromantic feat suggested in the 

 last sentence; but the exaggeration is pardonable in 

 the enthusiast to whom the principle meant so much 

 and in whose hands it extended so far. 



Of course this entire principle, in its broad outlines, is 

 something with which every student of anatomy had 

 been familiar from the time when anatomy was first 



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