‘said to be symbolic of the past or of the future, forasmuch 
_ as it is a non-existence which holds no local habitation 
anywhere, excepting under the anomalous dominion of 
imagination, weakness, phrensy, ignorance, or enthusiasm.* 
And regarding the serial skeleton axis (to which we con- 
fine our attention at present), whilst we find that lost 
quantity becomes the sole difference between two or more 
figures, and that this difference is species or the quantity 
REMARKS ON THE FIGURES OF PLATE XXVI. 
3 
a—b, in presence of a+b ; we therefore say that any one 
who will undertake to define nonentity, as though it were 
an ens, will prove himself the exact counterpart of him 
who, as a descendant of Machaon, shall profess such a 
close intimacy with the secrets of Hygeia as to be capable 
of diagnosing serous from subserous inflammatory action, 
or of individualising the affected lobule of a conglomerate 
gland, and prescribe accordingly. 
* It has been long since generally confessed to be impossible to render an anatomical definition of animal species. The animal chain being 
one of serial gradation is the cause why anatomy cannot isolate even one form as absolutely various to another ; and the same may be said of the 
serial chain of osseous quantities. Classification, according to specific distinctiveness, that is to say, according to absolute anatomical diversity, has 
never yet defined the differential line or hiatus between serial beings ; and this remark applies to the skeleton axis or series also. “ Ce moyen 
_ (une classification) supplée a notre foiblesse, facilite nos études et nos connoissances, et son usage est pour nous d’une nécessité indispensable ; 
mais j’ai déja montré qu’il est un produit de l’art, et que, malgré les apparences contraires, il ne tient réellement rien de la nature.”— 
Lamarck, Sur U’Etat de la Distrib. et de la Classif. des Animaux. Philos. Zoolog., tom. i. chap. v. page 103, 
« ‘ + 
oe 
