3 o4 OWEN'S POSITION IN 



the earliest rudiments of the spinal column, and 

 the manner in which it becomes segmented, are 

 alike throughout. 



On the other hand, a favourite speculation of 

 the philosophical anatomists, that the lower jaw 

 is formed by the coalescence of a pair of limbs, 

 for which comparative anatomy seemed to offer 

 some support ; and Geoffroy's tempting sugges- 

 tion that the opercular bones of fishes answer to 

 the ear-bones of mammals, were at once negatived 

 by the study of the development of the parts. 

 Again, the hypothesis that the skull consists of 

 modified vertebrae, advocated by Goethe and 

 Oken, and the subject of many elaborate works, 

 was so little reconcilable with the mode of its de- 

 velopment that, as early as 1842, Vogt threw well- 

 founded doubts upon it. ' All efforts to interpret 

 the skull in this way,' said he, 'are vain.' 



The preceding sketch of the history of ana- 

 tomical science, though drawn only in broad out- 

 line, may suffice to indicate the courses which 

 naturally suggested themselves to anyone taking 

 up the subject in the beginning of the fourth 

 decade of the present century. 



There was the brilliant example of Cuvier in 

 the ' Anatomie Comparee,' the ' Memoires sur les 

 Mollusques,' and the ' Ossemens Fossiles,' for any 

 one disposed to devote himself to the increase of 

 the capital stock of knowledge by museum work, or 



