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REMARKS ON THE FIGURES OF PLATE XXXVI. 
THE VENTRAL AND CERVICAL REGIONS ARE HIATUSES CAUSED BY SUBTRACTION OF QUANTITY FROM 
THE PLUS SERIES. 
gommainton from plus quantity is attended by the addition of design and fitness. Where Nature 
produces a hiatus in series, she fills it up again by functional perfection, and hence may be said 
to give design a place and habitation by the very act of rendering form annihilate. Serial uniformity, 
absolute and unexceptional, cannot, therefore, characterise any skeleton figure which is functionally and 
fittingly developed; for as by the absence of quantity hiatus is produced in series, and as design con- © 
sequently occurs, so may we readily conclude that the actual condition of an uninterrupted plus uniformity 
would be the very annihilation of design. Standard archetype uniformity will hence be sought for in 
vain amongst those figures which are designs by the very absence of serial quantity. Design being 
ubiquitous by the operation of a transcendent law of metamorphosis, it must, therefore, follow, that uniformity . 
or plus continuous equality cannot be ubiquitous; for we may as reasonably conclude that the plus 
uniformity and minus variety cannot characterise the same entity at one time, as that this ens cannot 
occupy two places at the same time. For the like reason we say, that where design is, absolute uniformity — 
cannot be; and as design is regnant universally, so must the fact be evident that perfect serial 
uniformity cannot have any place in Nature, nor has any anatomist ever fond it, neither can he ever 
hope to find it, so long as design is the product of metamorphosis; and yet it is for standard uniformity 
that we ourselves are seeking at the very same time that we confess it to be non-existent; thus 
apparently making the paralogism in our inquiries. But to explain ourselves openly we say, that though 
perfect continuous uniformity from origin to termination of any one skeleton line or axis can no where 
be found, in consequence of design following the track of metamorphosis, yet i¢ is discernible amongst 
the. skeleton pluralities, and may be produced as an abstract standard figure, created as it were 
upon the ground of analogy, and gathered together by the agency of comparison. 
Compared with. the thoracic serial quantities, the 
cervical and abdominal regions of the skeleton form must 
be interpreted as minus. All three regions of series, when 
compared with each other, will therefore lead to the inter- 
pretation that an abdomen and cervix are designs by lost 
‘quantity, and consequently that a thorax is a design by 
the persistence of full quantity. The quantity which is 
lost in one region of series is therefore to be called after 
the same name-as that which still persists at another 
region of the same series; and from this it must be 
inferred that the metamorphosis of archetype quantity, 
such as we find in the thoracic region, is that law which 
yields the abdominal and cervical specialities. This, 
therefore, is equal to the fact that the original or arche- 
type series is thoracic from occiput to the other extreme ; 
and this is the prime model of Nature, from which she 
plans her special designs. - Those designs are simply the 
result of the law of proportioning, subtraction or meta- 
morphosis. This is the teleological law, and, being one 
which Nature herself describes, cannot be accounted 
rebellious to Nature, or the Creator Nature. 
The sternal structures in all the opposite figures still 
prove inconstancy as to the number of their formative 
nuclei. Surmounting the first sternal pieces of figs. A, 
C, and D, will be seen certain osseous nuclei which prove 
that this extremity of the sternal structure is liable to 
