520 



jopies of this original idea, is tenable enough from the anthropo- 

 morphic point of view. But while those who, with Plato, think fit 

 to base their theory of creation upon the analogy of a carpenter 

 designing and making a table, must yield assent to Plato's inference, 

 they are by no means committed to Professor Owen's expansion ol 

 it. To say that before creating a vertebrate animal, God must 

 have had the conception of one, does not involve saying that God 

 gratuitously bound himself to make a vertebrate animal out of seg- 

 ments all moulded after one pattern. As tnere is no conceivable 

 advantage in this alleged adhesion to a fundamental pattern — as, 

 for the fulfilment of the intended ends, it is not only needless, but 

 often, as Professor Owen argues, less appropriate than some other 

 construction would be (see Nature of Limbs, pp. 39, 40), to sup- 

 pose the creative processes thus regulated, is not a little startling. 

 Even those whose conceptions are so anthropomorphic as to think 

 they honour the Creator by calling him " the Great Artificer," will 

 scarcely ascribe to him a proceeding which, in a human artificer, 

 they would consider a not very worthy exercise of ingenuity. 



But whichever of these alternatives Professor Owen contends for 

 — whether the typical vertebra is that more or less crystalline figure 

 which osseous matter ever tends to assume in spite of " the l^ex or 

 organizing principle,'' or whether the typical vertebra is itself an 

 " Sea or organizing principle" — there is alike implied the belief 

 that the typical vertebra has an abstract existence apart from actual 

 vertebrae. It is a form which, in every endoskeleton, strives to 

 embody itself in matter — a form which is potentially present in each 

 vertebra ; which is manifested in each vertebra with more or less 

 clearness ; but which, in consequence of antagonizing forces, is no- 

 where completely realized. Apart from the philosophy of this 

 hypothesis, let us here examine the evidence which is thought to 

 justify it. 



And first as to the essential constituents of the " ideal typical 

 vertebra." Exclusive of ^'■diverging appendages" which it "may 

 also support," " it consists in its typical completeness of the follow- 

 ing elements and parts " : — A centrum round which the rest are 

 arranged in a somewhat radiate manner; above it two. neurapophyses 

 — converging as they ascend, and forming with the centrum a trian- 

 guloid space containing the neural axis ; a neural spine surmounting 

 the two neurapophyses, and with them completing the neural arch ; 

 below the centrum two haymapophyses and a hcemal spine, forming a 

 haemal arch similar to the neural arch above, and enclosing the 

 hsemal axis ; two pleur apophyses radiating horizontally from the 

 sides of the centrum ; and two parapophyses divergiiia: from the 

 centrum below the pleurapophyses. " These," says Professoi' 

 Owen, " being usually developed from distinct and independent 



