2 REMARKS ON THE FIGURES OF PLATE IX. 
of this lost form persisted except the spinous process, then 
this process still holds serial order with the spinous 
process before and behind it, and thus it is that we are 
enabled to call it the spine of a lost vertebra, such as the 
one before and after the interval. 
Metamorphosis does not change the order or position 
of the vertebral elements. Whatever part of a vertebra 
remains after metamorphosis or the subtraction of vertebral 
elements, that part holds still the same position as it did 
when the form was complete. Whether the persistent 
part be the spinous process or the centrum, it still holds 
series with spinous processes and centrums. If all parts 
of fig. B” were lost except the costal piece a, and the 
spinous element 3, still we find that @ holds series with 
the part marked a in all the other vertebre of series, and 
3 with the parts marked 3. 
The comparison of minus and plus quantities of the 
same serial order becomes a creator, if not of the thing, at 
least of the idea of that thing or quantity which is absent 
from the minus figure, for we find it represented in the 
plus form adjacently created. And thus it is that by the 
rule of comparison we are enabled to read the design of 
Nature, creative of a fitness m form as well by the omis- 
sion of elemental quantity from one figure, as by the 
production of the like quantity for another figure. In 
organic nature we discover everywhere the manifestation 
of fitnesses and design, operated by the positive and the 
negative of some original quantity proper to archetype 
unity. And whenever we fully appreciate the passages of 
this law of creation, we do so by giving play to the ideas 
between the quantities present and absent. If, for 
example, the anatomist shall chance to find, on the top- 
most empyreal peak of the Himalayan mountain-chain, 
the human bone called astragalus, the ideas associated 
with this osseous quantity at once tells of its relationary 
parts absent; and these ideas make for him the abstract 
and combined prefigurement of the whole skeleton struc- 
ture to which it must have belonged.* Comparison thus 
creates the idea of the thing absent as lucidly as if it 
were present and impressed his vision with its actuality. 
His knowledge of the part is real only in so far as it is 
attended by his knowledge of the whole design of a 
human figure: this next becomes representative of all its 
ereated homologues, and these of the graduated chain of 
animal being in which all anatomical structure of the 
same order and kind is varied only as minus is to plus. 
The tusk of a mastodon and the canine tooth of a leopard 
vary as magnitude and parvitude. The heart of a levi- 
athan and that of a mole vary only as excess and defect. 
Quantities various as to excess and defect characterise 
the osseous skeleton axis also. These quantities, such as 
they are, stand in a serial order ; and it is this law of series 
which invites the anatomist not only to appreciate the 
present and already created design, but to pass deeper 
into the ways of Nature, and know of the process by which 
such design has resulted. 
The plus quantity, compared with the minus quantity, 
is equal to the comparison of the thing present with the 
thing absent; and it is in such a reading that the compa- 
rative reasoner may be said to people space or void. For 
if it be the fact that comparison teaches of the quantity 
which is actually lost to any minus figure of series by 
finding, actually created, the like quantity m another plus 
figure of the same series, then we say that the idea of the 
quantity absent is tantamount to the idea of the quantity 
present ; and so, between creation and non-creation, or 
addition and subtraction of similar quantities, we read the 
design of Nature. We know, for example, that one form 
in series is a fitness by the absence of those parts which, 
being present for another form of the same series, make it 
a fitness also. 
The subtraction from plus skeletoh quantity as per- 
formed by our own act, and the subtraction as taking 
place by the act of Nature, has this remarkable difference 
between them, viz., that the former is productive of 
nothing except the mere loss of quantity; whereas the 
latter teems with an absolute beauty and perfection from 
the very fact of rendering the whole quantity imperfect as 
a whole. If we subtract from fig. A”, in series, all its 
parts except 8, the spinous process, we know that a fitness 
as to form will not hence result, although we retain the 
idea of the quantity thus lost to the whole. But when, 
from such a whole, Nature subtracts a quantity and leaves 
a caudal proportional of the original figure still persistent, 
then we know that the absence of quantity has become 
the presence of design, this design being still (according 
to the rule of comparison) creative of the knowledge of 
how much quantity has been lost to the same. The 
comparison held between the lesser and the greater figure 
in series balances the ideas between that quantity which 
is absent to the former, and the like quantity which is 
present to the latter; and this in itselfis like an equation. 
* If we consider the skeleton figure merely as an osseous whole quantity constituted of elementary parts, we shall find that any one of such 
elements occurring separate, will as potently refer itself to the lost entirety or whole, as that fragment of a skeleton which in the hands of Cuvier _ 
led him to the reconstruction of a lost species. The idea which associates a piece of a skeleton to the exact species to which it may have 
belonged, is a much more complex idea than that which refers; any separated piece of a skeleton to some entire figure without regard to the 
species of such entirety. To understand that an astragalus must have belonged to some full skeleton quantity, is a simpler mental operation than 
to determine the species of such a skeleton. It is in illustration of the former idea that we apply the following sentence :—“ Tont étre organise 
forme un ensemble, un syst¢me unique et clos, dont les parties se correspondent mutuellement,”—* et par conséquent chacune d’elles, prise 
séparément, indique et donne toutes les autres.” —See Cuvier, Déscowrs sur les Révolutions de la Surface du Globe. 
