286 OWEN'S POSITION IN 



hand, if any one utterly ignorant of osteology, 

 but endowed with the artistic sense of form, were 

 set before a bird skeleton and a mammalian 

 skeleton, he would at once see that the two were 

 similar and yet different. Very likely he would be 

 unable to give clear expression to his just sense 

 of the differences and resemblances ; perhaps he 

 would make great mistakes in detail if he tried. 

 Nevertheless, he would be able to draw from 

 memory a couple of sketches, in which all the 

 salient points of likeness and unlikeness would be 

 reproduced with sufficient accuracy. The mere 

 osteologist, however accurately he might put the 

 resemblances and differences into words, if he 

 lacked the artistic visualising faculty, might be 

 hopelessly incompetent to perform any such feat ; 

 lost in details, it might not even occur to him that 

 it was possible ; or, still more probably, the habit 

 of looking for differences might impair the per- 

 ception of resemblances. 



Under these circumstances, the artist might be 

 led to higher and broader views, and thus be more 

 useful to the progress of science than the osteo- 

 logical expert. Not that the former attains the 

 higher truth by a different method ; for the way of 

 reaching truth is one and indivisible. Whether he 

 knows it or not, the artist has made a generalisa- 

 tion from two sets of facts, which is perfectly 

 scientific in form ; and, trustworthy, so far as it 

 rests upon the direct perception of similarities and 



