REMARKS, ON THE FIGURES OF PLATE 
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for figs. A, G, and K, after the same manner as the costal 
circle of fig. D, and we hence proceed to prove that figs. 
A, G, and K are minus quantities of such another quantity 
as that of fig. D, and also to*prove that in this reading 
alone is enshrined he idea of unity so far as regards the 
skeleton axes. 
When we refer the vertebral proportionals to the costo- 
vertebral whole, we then learn to estimate fully the con- 
dition of form which is minus by design, and also the con- 
dition of form which is plus by design. ‘But as the mere 
mechanical design of a vertebral quantity in one region of 
series; and the mechanical design of a costo-vertebral 
quantity in another region of the same series is a considera- 
tion altogether separate from the present theme, which 
proceeds to the recognition of whole quantities, and to the 
knowledge of that law which degrades these to proportional 
quantities, so for this reason we say that the idea of 
uniformity can never be developed until we know the 
originals of all the minus figures of series. 
We say that the comparison of all the plus and minus 
quantities of series, considering these as mere mechanical 
designs, can never teach us the mode and operation of a 
law of development, and this is self-evident, for the com- 
parison of a ceryical or lumbar vertebral design as such, 
with the thoracic design considered as such, will still never 
teach us the mode of creation whereby these several 
quantities occur in series. On the contrary, we shall find 
that in the knowledge of the law of formation, which yields 
the several regions of series alternately of minus and plus 
character, is contained the full estimate of the mechanical 
fitness of such a creation, and in addition to this we repeat 
that in the reading which regards the minus quantity as 
being the proportional metamorphosed from such another 
plus quantity as we find in the thoracic region of the same 
series, is centered the idea of original plus uniformity. 
For suppose that we continue to assent to the dry rules 
of descriptive anatomy, which likens the mechanical design 
of fig. K, the caudal bone, to a xoxkvé, and that we carry 
out the rule of such comparison by likening fig. D, the 
XXXI. 3 
thoracic figure, to a chariot-wheel (the latter comparison 
being. as much to the purpose as the former, though we 
plainly confess that the invention of a Caffre or a Kam- 
schatkadale could scarcely jabber in a nomenclature more 
irrelevant to Nature’s law and science), then it is plain 
that fig. K as the cuckoo’s beak, and fig. D as the chariot- 
wheel, can never yield to us the knowledge of a law of 
formation, the idea attending such comparison being no 
less foreign to the majesty of truth and nature than when’ 
the sentient matrons of old Rome, believing the female 
moon at eclipse was in labour, undertook the midwife’s 
office, and eased her throes with the din of brazen instru- 
ments and the loud shouts and jargon of their sympathetic 
noise or nomenclature. | 
The comparison of proportionals with the whole quan- 
tities gives the combined evidence of a law, and at the same 
time illustrates the track and passage of that process which 
furnishes the design minus, in series with the design plus.* 
When we understand that the minus quantity is a creation 
by the subtraction of elemental parts proper to the plus _ 
quantity, it will‘matter little whether we sound the name 
of the minus figure from the head of a kettle-drum, or 
the name of the plus figure from the mouth of a bugle, 
provided we still remain mindful of the fact or law which 
yields them as creations in the same serial order. 
And as we here conceive that the idea of serial uniformity 
can only be developed according to the interpretation that 
the plus figure performing the costal circle like fig. D, 
contains all those several quantities which have been pro- 
portionally metamorphosed from the plus originals of figs. 
A, G, and K, which lost quantities we have indicated in 
the ventral circles drawn from figs. A, G, and K, so do 
we assert that their several minus designs will be best 
understood by comparing + them with their original plus 
quantities, which may be said to equal fig. D, the costo- 
vertebral archetype, such as it stands, viz., a form bilate- 
rally symmetric, but not antero-posteriorly symmetric, 
which latter circumstance we believe to have occurred by 
the metamorphosis of dorsal quantity, but of this hereafter. 
* “ Hxcellence in every part, and in every province of our art, from the highest style of history down to the resemblances of still life, will 
depend on this power of extending the attention at once to the whole, without which the greatest diligence is vain.”—Sir Joshua Reynolds’ 
Discourses, discourse xi. 
+ “Scientia et potentia humana in idem coincidunt, quia ignoratio cause destituit effectum. Natura enim non xis? parendo vincitur : et 
quod in contemplatione instar cause est ; id in operatione instar regule est.’”-—Bacon, Novwm Organum Scientiarum, aph. iii., lib. i. 
