THE HISTORY OF ANATOMICAL SCIENCE 315 



gives off (according to laws) blind lateral canals ; 

 they ossify, and it is a trunk skeleton. This 

 skeleton repeats itself at the two poles, each pole 

 repeats itself in the other, and they are head and 

 pelvis. The skeleton is only a developed, rami- 

 fied, repeated vertebra ; and a vertebra is the 

 pre-formed germ of the skeleton. The entire man 

 is only a vertebra.' 



All this may be in accordance with the ' Idee,' 

 and demonstrable a priori \ but the plain, prosaic 

 inquirer into objective truth may be excused if he 

 finds nothing in it but a series of metaphorical 

 mystifications ; for which, so far as they are to 

 be taken seriously, no empirical justification ever 

 existed. There is not, and there never was, any 

 ground for believing that a vertebra is an ossified 

 vesicle ; or that a vertebral column, or a trunk 

 skeleton, is produced in the way asserted ; or that 

 a head is a repeated pelvis, or vice versa ; while 

 the intelligibility of the final assertion that * the 

 entire man is only a vertebra,' is not apparent. 

 The spirit which animates these oracular utter- 

 ances pervades all the writings of Oken and 

 his school ; it provided Cuvier with the subject- 

 matter of his severest, as well as of his most justi- 

 fiable sarcasms ; and every one who has the inte- 

 rests of sound science at heart must feel Cuvier' s 

 debtor for the pertinacity with which he combated, 

 and finally drove out of the field of science, this 

 pseudo-philosophical word-play. 



