98 COMPARATIVE ANATOMY vm 



in some sort of articulate language. If I can only succeed in 

 awakening an interest in them, and lead any one who may 

 chance to come into this theatre to continue his studies in the 

 museum, where he will meet with far greater return for his 

 time and his attention than here, the delivery of these lectures 

 will not have been altogether in vain. 



I have just mentioned the museum. It is impossible to 

 do so without recalling the circumstance that this day is the 

 one on which we have been accustomed to celebrate the 

 anniversary of the birth of the illustrious founder of that 

 collection. 



The 14th of February is a red-letter day in our calendar. 

 On this day a series of eloquent tributes have been paid to 

 the merits of that great man by successive Hunterian orators. 

 I will not delay the commencement of the proper subject of 

 this course by endeavouring to speak of Hunter either as a 

 philosopher, a physiologist, or a surgeon, but I cannot 

 refrain from making a passing allusion to his work in 

 relation to the special subject of these lectures Comparative 

 Anatomy. And even this would have been superfluous, after 

 the able analysis of Hunter's work in this branch of science 

 contributed by Professor Owen to the fourth volume of Palmer's 

 edition of his collected writings, if it had not been for the vast 

 elucidation of the nature and amount of that work by the 

 subsequent publication of the two closely -printed octavo 

 volumes of Essays and Observations on Natural History^ 

 Anatomy, Physiology, Psychology, and Geology, ly John Hunter, 

 being his Posthumous Papers on those Subjects, arranged and 

 revised by Professor Owen (1861). 



Hunter's reputation has suffered grievously from the 

 extreme difficulty he always met with in giving adequate 

 expression to his ideas. Mr. Clift, who acted for a time 

 as his amanuensis, has told us how he has often "written 

 the same page for him at least half a dozen times over, with 

 corrections and transpositions almost without end ; " and those 

 who are familiar with his writings must own that, after all this 

 labour, the result was often far from satisfactory. Hunter was 

 himself painfully aware of the deficiency. This it is which 

 has detracted much from the estimate in which many of his 



