312 OWEN'S POSITION IN 



in later years. In 1849, the first of the long 

 series of memoirs on British fossil reptiles ap- 

 peared ; in 1863, the description of the famous 

 reptilian bird Archaeopteryx. 



It is a splendid record ; enough, and more 

 than enough, to justify the high place in the 

 scientific world which Owen so long occupied. 

 If I mistake not, the historian of comparative 

 anatomy and of palaeontology will always assign to 

 Owen a place next to, and hardly lower than that 

 ofCuvier, who was practically the creator of those 

 sciences in their modern shape ; and whose works 

 must always remain models of excellence in their 

 kind. It was not uncommon to hear our country- 

 man called ' the British Cuvier,' and so far, in my 

 judgment, the collocation was justified, high as 

 the praise it implies. 



But when we consider Owen's contributions to 

 * philosophical anatomy,' I think the epithet ceases 

 to be appropriate. For there can be no question 

 that he was deeply influenced by, and inclined 

 towards, those speculations of Oken and Geoffroy 

 St. Hilaire, of which Cuvier was the declared 

 antagonist and often the bitter critic. 



That Owen was strongly attracted by the 

 Naturphilosophie of Germany is evidenced, not 

 merely by his attitude towards the problems 

 of philosophical anatomy, but by his article on 

 Oken in the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica ; ' and by 



