THE HISTORY OF ANATOMICAL SCIENCE 331 



give the general reader an outline sketch of the scope 

 and the course of modern biological science ; of the 

 condition of its several great divisions when Sir 

 R. Owen commenced his career sixty -four years 

 ago ; of the influence of his work upon the extra- 

 ordinarily rapid advance of biology in the course 

 of that time ; and it may be well that, arrived at 

 the end of my task, I recall my allusion, at the 

 outset, to the special difficulties in the way of the 

 satisfactory performance of it. 



It does not appear to me that anything need be 

 said here about the many scientific controversies 

 in which Owen was engaged. I should be of this 

 opinion if I had not been concerned in any of them ; 

 for I do not see what good is to result from the 

 revival of the memory of such conflicts. And 

 whether I am right or wrong in this opinion, 

 I am well assured that, if anything is to be said 

 upon this topic, I am not the proper person to 

 say it. 



But notwithstanding my determination to 

 ignore controversies, and a strong desire to 

 appreciate rather than to criticise, I am sensible 

 that the discussion of the ' Archetype ' and ot 

 1 Parthenogenesis ' not merely allows the wide 

 differences of opinion, which unhappily obtained 

 between Sir R. Owen and myself, to appear, but 

 occupies an amount of space which may be 

 thought excessive, in relation to that filled by my 

 endeavour to do justice to the great and solid 



