THE HISTORY OF ANATOMICAL SCIENCE 313 



the fact that the translation of Oken's * Lehrbuch 

 der Naturphilosophie ' 2 was undertaken at his 

 instance. Thus, when Owen passes from matters 

 of anatomical fact and their immediate interpreta- 

 tion to morphological speculation, it is not surpris- 

 ing that he also passes from the camp of Cuvier 

 into that of his adversaries. 



In the advertisement of the work ' On the 

 Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate 

 Skeleton,' published in 1848, Owen says : — 



' The subject of the following essay has occu- 

 pied a portion of my attention from the period 

 when, after having made a certain progress in 

 comparative anatomy, the evidence of a greater 

 conformity to type, especially in the bones of 

 the head of the vertebrate animals, than the 

 immortal Cuvier had been willing to admit 

 began to enforce a reconsideration of his conclu- 

 sions, to which I had previously yielded implicit 

 assent.' 



In fact, what I may call 'Okenism' colours 

 Owen's whole cast of thought on these matters, 

 and his admiration for Oken finds frequent vent 

 in his writings. Thus, in a note at p. 8 of the 

 * Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate 

 Skeleton' (1848), we find : — 



' Oken's famous " Programm ueberdie Bedeu- 

 tung der Schadelknochen " was published in the 

 same year (1807) as Geoffroy's memoir on the 



2 Physiophilosophy, translated by Tulk. Ray Society, 1847. 



