394 THE INDUCTIONS OF BIOLOGY. 



and varied group, the members of which were to have many 

 different modes of life, and that he bound himself to adhere 

 rigidly to this plan, even in the most aberrant forms of the 

 group where some other plan would have been more appro- 

 priate, is to ascribe a very strange motive. When we dis- 

 cover that the possession of seven cervical vertebrae is a gen- 

 eral characteristic of mammals, whether the neck be im- 

 mensely long as in the giraffe, or quite rudimentary as in 

 the whale, shall we say that though, for the whale's neck, 

 one vertebra would have been equally good, and though, for 

 the giraffe's neck, a dozen would probably have been better 

 than seven, yet seven was the number adhered to in both 

 cases, because seven was fixed upon for the mammalian type? 

 And then, when it turns out that this possession of seven 

 cervical vertebrae is not an absolutely-universal characteristic 

 of mammals (there is one which has eight), shall we conclude 

 that while, in a host of cases, there was a needless adherence 

 to a plan for the sake of consistency, there was yet, in some 

 cases, an inconsistent abandonment of the plan? I think 

 we may properly refuse to draw any such conclusion. 



What, then, is the meaning of these peculiar relations of 

 organic forms? The answer to this question must be post- 

 poned. Having here contemplated the problem as presented 

 in these wide inductions which naturalists have reached ; and 

 having seen what proposed solutions of it are inadmissible; 

 we shall see, in the next division of this work, what is the 

 only possible solution. 



