DIVISION II. 



VIII. ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF MATHEMATICAL 

 MODES OF INVESTIGATION IN THE DETER- 

 MINATION OF ORGANIC FORMS* 



LECTURE I. 



BIOLOGY, the science of which physiology and anatomy formed 

 parts, had been hitherto advanced by the study of the structure 

 of animals or vegetables* and the investigation of the functions 

 or uses of the various parts of that structure. This was the 

 object with which they sought to ascertain the uses and func- 

 tions of the particular parts of animals and vegetables under 

 examination, and to determine why the bones of any parti- 

 cular animal should be of a particular form. Biologists had 



* The two Lectures on this subject formed the conclusion of Professor 

 Goodsir's course of lectures on Comparative Anatomy, delivered in the Uni- 

 versity in the Summer Session, 1849. The Abstract appeared in the Daily 

 Mail newspaper, July 31st and August 7th of that year. It had obviously 

 not been furnished or corrected by the author, and contained not only many 

 positive mistakes, but interpolations by the reporter. In the absence of any 

 manuscript copy from which to correct it, we had some doubts at first whether 

 it should be reprinted. But as it shows that the author's attention had been 

 directed many years ago to a department of inquiry, which, though compara- 

 tively neglected, undoubtedly affords room for useful research, and in which, 

 indeed, he was engaged up to within a few weeks of his death ; as it is an 

 attempt to illustrate that, the original form and law of growth of an organic 

 body being known, its form at any future time may be made a matter of 

 mathematical investigation, we have reproduced it, with the omission of such 

 phrases and errors as were most obviously due to blunders on the part of the 

 reporter. EDS. 



