114 
of the lateral ventricle and the ‘hippocampus minor’ which characterise the hind 
lobe of each hemisphere.’ —Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, 
Vol. ii, p. 19. 
As the essay in which this passage stands had no Jess ambitious an aim than 
the remodelling of the classification of the Mammalia, its author might be sup- 
posed to have written under a sense of peculiar responsibility, and to have tested, 
with especial care, the statements he ventured to promulgate. And even if this 
be expecting too much, hastiness, or want of opportunity for due deliberation, 
cannot now be pleaded in extenuation of any shortcomings ; for the propositions 
cited were repeated two years afterwards in the Reade Lecture, delivered before 
so grave a body as the University of Cambridge, in 1859. 
When the assertions, which I have italicised in the above extract, first came 
under my notice, I was not a little astonished at so flat a contradiction of the 
doctrines current among well-informed anatomists ; but, not unnaturally imagin- 
ing that the deliberate statements of a responsible person must have some 
foundation in fact, I deemed it my duty to investigate the subject anew before 
the time at which it would be my business to lecture thereupon came round. The 
result of my inquiries was to prove that Mr. Owen's three assertions, that “ the 
third lobe, the posterior horn of the lateral ventricle, and the hippocampus 
? 
minor,” are “ peculiar to the genus Homo,” are contrary to the plainest facts. 
I communicated this conclusion to the students of my class; and then, having 
no desire to embark in a controversy which could not redound to the honour of 
British science, whatever its issue, I turned to more congenial occupations. 
The time speedily arrived, however, when a persistence in this reticence would 
have involved me in an unworthy paltering with truth. 
At the meeting of the British Association at Oxford, in 1860, Professor Owen 
repeated these assertions in my presence, and, of course, I immediately gave 
them a direct and unqualified contradiction, pledging myself to justify that 
unusual procedure elsewhere. I redeemed that pledge by publishing, in the 
January number of the Natural’ History Review for 1861, an article wherein 
the truth of the three following propositions was fully demonstrated (7. c. p. 71) :-— 
“1, That the third lobe is neither peculiar to, nor characteristic of, man 
seeing that it exists in all the higher quadrumana.” 
“2, That the posterior cornu of the lateral ventricle is neither peculiar to, 
