HUXLEY AND HIS WORK. 765 



ical data, he had reason to protest. This confusion was effected by one 

 of great eminence. There was no naturalist in Britain about the mid- 

 dle of the century who enjoyed a reputation equal to that of Ei chard 

 Owen. An anatomist of preeminent skill and extraordinary industry, 

 his merits had been appreciated by the entire world. An opinion of 

 his had a weight accorded to no others. Consequently a new classifi- 

 cation of the mammals, published by him in 1857, soon became popular. 

 This classification was founded on alleged characters of the brain and 

 on successive phases of increase in the cerebrum. Man was isolated 

 not only as the representative of a family, but of an order and a subclass. 



According to Owen, "in man the brain presents an ascensive step in 

 development, higher and more strongly marked than that by which the 

 preceding subclass was distinguished from the one below it. Not only 

 do the cerebral hemispheres overlap the olfactory lobes and cerebel- 

 lum, but they extend in advance of the one and farther back than the 

 other. Their posterior development is so marked that anatomists have 

 assigned to that part the character of a third lobe. It is peculiar to the 

 genus Homo, and equally peculiar is the 'posterior horn of the lateral 

 ventricle,' and the 'hippocampus minor,' which characterize the hind 

 lobe of each hemisphere. The superficial gray matter of the cerebrum, 

 through the number and depth of the convolutions, attains its maxi- 

 mum of extent in man. Peculiar mental powers are associated with 

 this highest form of brain, and their consequences wonderfully illus- 

 trate the value of the cerebral character." 



The views thus expressed by Owen were reiterated on various occa- 

 sions, but many anatomists dissented from them, and the rumbling of 

 a future storm was betokened. At last the storm cloud broke, and 

 Owen was overwhelmed. At a great popular assemblage at Oxford, 

 on the occasion of the meeting of the British Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, Owen once more urged his contention of the 

 cerebral characteristics of man, and maintained this wide difference 

 from the apes. 



Huxley immediately rose and, with that cogency of reasoning which 

 characterized him, proceeded to divest the subject of the sophistries 

 in which it had been enveloped. "The question," he said, "appeared 

 to him in no way to represent the real nature of the problem under 

 discussion. He would therefore put that problem in another way. 

 The question was partly one of facts and partly one of reasoning. The 

 question of facts was, What are the structural differences between 

 man and the highest apes'? — the question of reasoning, What is the 

 systematic value of those differences? Several years ago Professor 

 Owen had made three distinct assertions respecting the differences 

 which obtained between the brain of man and that of the highest 

 apes. He asserted that three structures were ' peculiar to and char- 

 acteristic' of man's brain, these being the 'posterior lobe,' the 'pos- 

 terior cornu,' and the ' hippocampus minor.' In a controversy which 



