Febeuaby 21, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



259 



which had lasted for some years, Prof. 

 Owen had not qualified these assertions, 

 but had repeatedly reiterated them. He 

 (Prof. Huxley), on the other hand, had con- 

 troverted these statements; and afi&rmed, 

 on the contrary, that the three structures 

 mentioned not only exist, but are often better 

 developed than in man, in all the higher 

 apes. He (Prof. Huxley) now appealed to 

 the anatomists present in the section whether 

 the universal voice of Continental and Bri- 

 tish anatomists had not entirely borne out 

 his statements and refuted those of Prof. 

 Owen. Prof. Huxley discussed the rela- 

 tions of the foot of man with those of the 

 apes, and showed that the same argument 

 could be based upon them as on the brain; 

 that argument being that the structural dif- 

 ferences between man and the highest ape 

 are of the same order, and only slightly dif- 

 ferent in degree from those which separate 

 the apes one from another. In conclusion 

 he expressed his opinion of the futility of 

 discussions like the present. In his opin- 

 ion the differences between man and the 

 lower animals are not to be expressed by 

 his toes or his brain, but are moral and intel- 

 lectual." 



The appeal to anatomists was answered 

 on the spot. The foremost anatomists of 

 England there present (Eolleston and 

 Flower) successively rose and endorsed the 

 affirmations of Huxley. Not one supported 

 Owen and, brilliant as his attainments were, 

 his want of candor entailed on him the loss 

 of his eminent place, and Huxley took the 

 vacated throne. But the contest that re- 

 sulted in Owen's overthrow was of great 

 service, for in the chief centers of civiliza- 

 tion anatomists eagerly investigated the 

 question at issue, and the consequence was 

 that in a few years more material had been 

 collected and studied than under ordinary 

 conditions would have been done in five 

 times the period. Unlike other battles, one 

 in scientific warfare is almost always ad- 



vantageous to the general cause, whatever 

 it may be to a party. 



IV. 



' The first important memoir by Huxley 

 was written in his twenty-third year 'On 

 the Anatomy and the Afl&nities of the Fam- 

 ily of the Medusai' (Phil. Trans., 1849, pp. 

 413-434, pi. 37-39), and contained the germ 

 of a fundamental generalization. He therein 

 laid ' particular stress upon the composition 

 of [' the stomach '] and other organs of the 

 Medusae out of two distinct membranes, as [he 

 says] I believe that is one of the essential 

 peculiarities of their structure, and that a 

 knowledge of the fact is of great importance 

 in investigating their homologies. I will 

 [he continues] call these two membranes as . 

 such and independently of any modification 

 into particular organs, 'foundation mem- 

 branes ' (p. 414). In his summary (p. 425) 

 he also formulates ' that a Medusa consists 

 essentially of two membranes, inclosing a 

 a variously-shaped cavity, inasmuch as its 

 various organs are so composed.' 



I have thus given Huxley's own words in- 

 asmuch as Prof Haeckel has' asserted that 

 Huxley therein " directed attention to the 

 very important point that the body of these 

 animals is constructed of two cell-layers — 

 of the Ectoderm and the Endoderm — and 

 that these, physiologically and morphologi- 

 cally, may be compared to the two germinal 

 layers of the higher animals" (Nature. 

 1874), and Prof. Kowalevsky has also 

 claimed that Huxley " founded modern em- 

 bryology by demonstrating the homology 

 of the germinal layers of Vertebrates with 

 the ectoderm and endoderm of Ccelenter- 

 ates" (Nature, Oct. 31, 1895, p. 651). 



In all candor I must confess that, impor- 

 tant as the generalization of Huxley for the 

 Medusae was, it was only applied by him to 

 the Medusae, and was not necessarily exten- 

 sible with the homologies indicated, but it 

 was pregnant with suggestiveness and to 



