divided further into animals of tongues, noses, ears, and 

 eyes. In another place Oken stated that molluscs correspond 

 to the organs of touch, insects to the organs of vision, 

 amphibia to that of taste, and birds to that of hearing. 

 Inside the organism some parts are analogous to others: skull 

 to pelvis, mouth opening to posterior-excretory, and so on. 

 These imaginative analogies played a role in the history of 

 science, because they attracted biologists' attention to 

 the problems of comparative anatomy and comparative physiology, 



One of the achievements of comparative anatomy of that 

 time, which was based on the general conclusions of Natur- 

 philosophie, was the establishment of what is called the 

 "vertebral nature of the skull." The authors of this theory 

 were the great poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe and the naturalist 

 Oken. In 1791 Goethe discussed the idea that the skull of 

 the vertebrate animal was formed by the growth of four greatly 

 modified vertebrae; however, he did not publish his specula- 

 tions on this subject for a long time. (Ed.: Not until 1820 

 in ZUR MORPHOLOGIE.) Hence the initiative in establishing 

 the vertebral theory of the skull is usually credited to 

 Oken, who came to the same conclusions independently of 

 Goethe and who reported them in a publication in 1807. 

 Comparative anatomical work up to the second half of the 

 nineteenth century found no significant objections to Goethe's 

 and Oken's conclusions, if we disregard (Thomas) Huxley's 

 remarks about the non-correspondence of the vertebral theory 

 of the skull to the facts relating to the head of lower 

 vertebrates. Huxley also briefly mentioned that the embryonic 

 cartilaginous skull did not have segments comparable to the 

 vertebrae. Only in 1871 did one of the founders of comparative 

 embryology, Mechnikov, approach this problem from an embryo - 

 logical, evolutionary point of view and show the lack of 

 correspondence of this theory to the facts. 



In a speech devoted to the vertebral theory of the skull, 

 Mechnikov gave an interesting opinion about its origins in 

 Naturphilosophie. It is thus necessary to include here some 

 quotations from this speech, which was published in a poorly 

 distributed and apparently unknown journal. ^ 



4. I. I. Mechnikov, "Vertebral Theory of the Skull." Speech 

 prepared to be read at the celebration of Novorossiiskii 

 University, August 30,1871. NOTES OF NOVOROSSIISKII 

 UNIVERSITY, 7 (1871), pp. 1 - 20. 



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