2 REMARKS ON THE FIGURES OF PLATE XxX. 
But whatever be the degree of variety as to proportioning 
which marks those several forms, we still see that their 
serial order, from first to last, renders them cleavable 
through the median line. This same median cleavage, 
which passes through the centre of the thoracic archetype 
B’, divides the smallest proportional of such an archetype 
in fig. I’; the last caudal nodule. 
The median line, which renders the created archetype 
fig. B’ bipartite, may be said to pass through the centre of 
the ideal archetype of fig. F’, its smallest proportional. 
We have described the circle of increase through which 
all those forms A’ B’C’D’E’ and EF’ are more or less 
produced. 
Now, hitherto we have confined our comparisons to the 
serial osseous quantities of the one species of spinal axis, 
and the reason is, because we have seen that it contains 
within its own proportions the very same subjects of 
“specific variety”? and of “unity” which pervade the 
general animal kingdom. In the comparison of those 
proportional quantities which constitute the human spine, 
the anatomist may (according to the bent of his capacity,) 
pursue either the differential method of characterising 
two or more quantities of osseous product as species, or he 
may point his method so as to work out the creation of 
original uniformity upon the facts of analogical reasoning. 
But before we pass into the infinity of specialities which 
pervade an animal kingdom, we should first have exhausted 
comparisons by the facts of development nearer at hand, 
and when we shall have gathered together the full sum 
of even these—a comparative few—perhaps we shall be 
better prepared to comprehend the universal many. 
It is by the diligent observance of phenomena near at 
hand and in view that we are enabled to discover the 
general laws of Nature, removed to a distance both as to 
time and place. It is by the proximal and existing rule 
of analogy that the mind is invited to the interpretation of 
remote phenomena, and to deduce, if it cannot actually 
demonstrate, the transcendent and universal operation by 
those which lie immediately within our reach. For Nature 
repeats herself throughout infinity, and the visible and 
adjacent proofs of this fact render all further deductions 
of this kind most plausible. We are thence taught to 
depend upon the supposition that the Auctor Nature 
operates uniformly, and in constant observance of those 
rules which we now take for principles. The comparison 
of several facts or phenomena renders observable the like- 
ness or conformity existing between them. The natural 
operation, within presence of which we stand, is analogous 
to the operation far remote. In Physics, the gravitation 
of a stone, the rising of the sea to the moon, and the 
cohesion and crystallization of bodies are not stronger 
evidence of the oneness of universal law, than is the 
human skeleton fabric (constituted of proportional quan- 
tities) a proof that it is the like law of proportioning from 
plus quantity which extends itself through the graduated 
chain of being. 
Conducting our comparisons, therefore, amongst the 
osseous quantities of the one serial axis, we find the law of 
formation to be one of metamorphosis, or the subtraction 
from a plus original, and the adjacent proof of this fact 
gives the whole history of the law which presides over the. 
development of all the skeleton fabrics of an animal king- 
dom. For, connectedly, as we see figs. A’A” A” to-be a 
proportional series of the seventh cervical unit, so, con- 
nectedly, we infer that figs. A’B’C’ D’E’ and ¥F’ are also a 
proportional series of separate units whose originals are 
the equals of fig. B’ the archetype of series, or that plus 
quantity to which may be referred not only all the normal 
proportionals of series, but even all the abnormal products 
which occasionally make the mammal axis vary to itself. 
And who shall stay this ever-occurring variation of quantity 
by the rule of specific distinction? If classifiers designate 
one species by the existence of fig. A’ as a seventh cervical 
figure, and another by the existence of fig. A’” as another 
condition of development properto the seventh cervical unit, 
then let them carry out their rule and establish special va- 
riety between three human skeletons from whose cervices 
we have taken figs. A’ A” A” as the seventh cervical vertebra. 
But there is a call which invites the mind to cast aside 
the everlasting labour and unproductive task of endlessly 
recording specific variation and of chopping the unity into 
its infinitesimal parts, and trammelling these with such 
names as Epial, Perial, Cycleal, Paraal, Cataal.* Unity, or 
the whole quantity, is the’ intelligible bond of plurality, 
or the parts of unity.t When the figure of unity, or the 
Warwick Vase, shall chance to fall from its pedestal, 
and shall lie strewn before us in fragmental plurality, we 
then would not have recourse to the lexicon, in order to 
create the long account of nomenclature as recordative of 
the many, which only relate of the original one. When 
we read the Hpic through its rise and fall of action, we do 
not merge the unity of its whole design in the barren 
And when, by 
a comparison of the opposite forms, there appears every 
reason to interpret that fig. B’,t like a whole quantity, 
suffers metamorphosis to the proportional variety of figs. A’ 
C’D’E’ and F’, why need we, then, vex the drowsy ear of 
criticism of its isolated words and letters. 
Morpheus with the senseless drumming of a nomenclature 
which, even though it be classically founded, cannot blind 
us to the facts that fig. A’ may be figs. A” and A”, and 
consequently the proportional of fig. B’; to which latter 
quantity even fig. F may rise by a mode of equation, 
because fig. F is none other than the proportional of such 
as fig. B’. If we never discover this to have place in the 
mammalian serial axis, the “ teleological” fact is, that the 
mammal axis, which is a fitness by converging series, 
would be an unfitness by the existence of all the series of 
plus archetypes or costo-vertebral forms. 
* Names used by Geoffroy to characterise the several pieces of his “ typical vertebra.” 
+ “ Reason’s comparing balance rules the whole.’—Porz. Essay on Man. 
t “La partie d’un tout organique est incontestablement douée d’un organisation d’autant plus élevée qu'elle répete plus parfaitement en elle 
Vidée du tout, et le tout lui-méme est d’autant plus parfait, qu’il correspond d’avantage a l’idée de la nature entiére dont nous dévons reconnaitre 
que l’essence est l’wnité des lois éternelles révéllées dans Vinfinie diversité de la manifestation.”—C. G. Carus, Traité Elément d’Anatomie 
Comp. Chap. IJ., p. 26: traduit par J. L. Jourpan. 
Leipzig, 1828. 
See also Carus, Von den Urtheilen des -Knochen und Schalengeriistes, fol., 
