REMARKS ON THE FIGURES OF PLATE XXII. 3 
fashioned from serial plus archetypes, like the first tho- 
racic quantity, 1 da, why should we, in such case, choose 
rather to deny the anatomical fact, and be content to 
follow in the eternal train of doubt which anatomists* 
entertain regarding the creation of cervical costz, than, 
by owning fully to the fact, to recommence anew by 
measuring their presence with the law of their production ? 
The appearance of cervical ribs.im fig. B. shortens the 
cervical hiatus between occiput and thorax. The appear- 
ance of lumbar ribs in fig..D lessens lumbar hiatus 
between the thorax and sacrum, and, consequent upon 
both conditions of a plus increase, we find that the 
thoracic series extends itself like all other modes of crea- 
tions which force their way and passage into space and 
make an expanding presence there equating to the form 
of serial plus unity, or that individuality which transcends 
all specific difference or minus condition. The human 
thoracic plus series is seen to encroach upon the cervical 
and lumbar regional and minus quantities, form is changed 
even for the normal human type, and we find that species 
is not constant even for the human figure; so, therefore, 
on the principle of [v6 ceavrdy, let us first question the 
creation of specific variety between the opposite figures ; 
for it is true that, notwithstanding our consent to read 
them as being of one and the same species, yet they are 
as difform to each other as those which, in other animals, 
we call absolute specific distinctness. 
If we are to own to the facts of anatomy at all, we then 
must proceed to gather the full account of these, and if it 
be asked what are those anatomical conditions of develop- 
ment which may fairly be accounted as happening amongst 
the genus fact, we answer that they are such as we may 
lay hands upon and circumambulate. Cervical and lum- 
bar supernumerary costz are of such an order of facts, ~ 
and it is no less true that when they do appear, the 
processes which we name “ transverse” on the cervical 
and lumbar vertebra disappear, because the plus creation 
of the former involves the minus creation of the latter, 
and both prove themselves to be one and the same thing ; 
forasmuch as they occupy one and the same place, and 
forasmuch also as (in nature, at least) no two separate 
and distinct things can at one time possess the same 
place. Of this kind or genus fact may also be regarded 
this other order of Nature—viz., that things of absolutely 
distinct character or specific variety are never seen to 
occupy the same serial order, and therefore we say that the 
anterior roots of cervical “transverse processes”? which 
hold serial relation with thoracic cost, and these, with 
lumbar “transverse processes,” are all three of the same 
order of growth varied to each other only by the law of 
proportioning. And the anatomical fact, such as we find 
it, is no other than that the transverse process of cervix 
or loins in one skeleton axis, becomes the costa for another 
skeleton figure, and this is an occurrence which pervades 
all classes, all genera, and species, causing all method to 
be like a shifting scene, vain, delusive, and unreal, for this 
is also a fact, and as such has been handed down to 
modern times through the successive epochs of Natural 
History, from Aristotle, lian, Pliny, Solinus, and Theo- 
phrastus, for the consideration of Aldrovandus, Linnus, 
Buffon, Cuvier, Lamarck and Geoffroy. 
* The occurrence of cervical and lumbar ribs has been differently interpreted by anatomists, and perhaps the contrariety of opinion has been 
occasioned by a nomenclature of doubtful meaning; as much as from an inclination to hold to a rule of development which (whether unexcep- 
tional or otherwise, according to the facts of Nature,) was willingly admitted to be general and unexceptional for.convenience sake. The 
mammal cervix was already known to be produced of seven vertebre, and even when such instances occurred as those of a mammal cervix 
having but five or six of those quantities named vertebra, or, as in other examples, where the cervix consisted of eight or nine ceryical vertebra, 
still the name cervix, as used to characterise mammalian form, was a synonyme of the number seven, and hence we have the following obser- 
vations. Although Hunauld broadly affirms that the transcendental law gives to the human skeleton more than twelve ribs, still Meckel reads 
these supernumerary cervical and lumbar ribs as being prolonged “ transverse processes,” and Blainyille interprets these products as belonging to 
a category of ribs proper to themselves, distinct from those of the thorax, and also distinct from those ordinarily named “ cervical ribs.” 
Sandifort has figured cervical ribs in his work, and Carus generalises upon their existence, calling them “ protovertebral arches.” The subject 
has also interested the thoughts of Blumenbach, Riche, Sylvester, Buffon, Cuvier, Vicq @’Azyr, Wiedemann, Goethe, Rousseau, Richard, Bell 
and others. rae 
