a ee a ee 
Ps a 
. : ‘ 
REMARKS ON THE FIGURES OF PLATE XVII. 
THE CERVICAL, ASTERNAL-THORACIC, AND LUMBAR OSSEOUS QUANTITIES ARE COMPARED TO THE PLUS 
ARCHETYPE. 
(ee degradation or subtraction of quantity from the archetype or fullest figure in series may take place to 
any amount. Subtraction may be infinitesimal and inappreciable by sense, in which case it would seem 
as a differential nothingness, or else it may be so considerable as almost to annihilate the original thus 
subjected to the operation. In the former case the archetype form would still persist, scarcely altered from 
itself, whereas in the latter case the archetype would be so metamorphosed from its plus proportion, that it 
would be difficult to say whether the quantity left from it after subtraction were a part of the original or not. 
However, the law of proportional series becomes the index and demonstrator of the effects exercised by 
metamorphosis upon the form of the plus quantity. And those effects are still further interpreted by the 
facts that minus quantities. occasionally are seen to simulate the plus figures’ When that form of the cervix 
or loins develops the cervical or lumbar ribs, then we say that subtraction from an archetype has not 
operated to the same extent as in ordinary rule. 
When we name a form to be the proportional of its 
archetype quantity, the interpretation presupposes the 
existence of the archetype. Forms which when held in 
comparison with each other manifest no other character of 
difference than that occurring by the proportioning, must 
then be one and all regarded as the proportionals of the 
_ plus archetype which, when subjected to metamorphosis, 
produced them as they appear. The archetype series 
must be serial uniformity, whereas the series which mani- 
fests proportional character is only rendered various as 
minus is to plus. 
Fig. A’ represents the first three thoracic quantities, 
and we see that it is possible to render them proportionally 
various to each other by breaking off the costal forms at 8, 
d, and a. But even if these three thoracic homologues 
were presented in such condition to the view of the anato- 
mist, he never would fail to read them as forms gradu- 
| atedly proportioned from the plus quantities which perform 
the circle, and meet at the sternal region c, c,c. Thus the 
part would suggest the idea of the whole. 
Fig. A” represents the last three thoracic forms termed 
“false.” If we change this name “ false’”’ to minus, then 
we shall have a clue to the right interpretation of them, as 
the minus proportionals of plus or archetype quantities. 
The last floating rib, marked a 4, is evidently the minus 
proportional of the next rib above it, marked ad, and this 
again is as evidently proportioned from the plus quantity 
i _—— 
marked ae. Kyvidently, therefore, fig. A” produces the 
costal forms aaa, as ranging through the lines ae, and for 
this reason they may be regarded all three as the varied 
proportionals of forms fully produced to the median line ec, 
and so they undoubtedly are. For we see that all the 
anomalies of the asternal cost principally depend upon 
the plus advance through the lines 8c, dc, and ec, thus 
approaching the sternal median line in front. 
In fig. A’ we see how the costal circles, when broken off 
at bd and e, would invariably suggest the full archetype 
quantities produced to the sternal line c. In fig. A we 
see where Nature metamorphoses the proportional quan- 
tities, in fitness terminating them at the points dde. If, 
therefore, fig. A”, with the coste metamorphosed by 
Nature at the points 6de, be in fact the proportional 
homologues of fig. A’, whose costal forms are metamor- 
phosed or rendered minus at the points 6 de, so may it be 
inferred that fig. A”, with its asternal coste, are as minus 
quantities metamorphosed from archetype originals equal 
to the forms of fig. A’ in full sternal costo-vertebral type. 
The variety, therefore, which we see between fig. A’ and A” 
is no other than that which plus bears to minus, and so the 
forms which Nature leaves standing in one region of series 
as plus quantities have their homologues metamorphosed 
by Nature in another region of series to minus quantities. 
Such is the design. 
Fig. B, the cervical vertebra, and fig. C, the lumbar 
