9) REMARKS ON THE FIGURES OF PLATE XXXVIITI. 
marked 4, of fig. O. In like manner fig. P, whose arche- 
type quantity has undergone metamorphosis in allits parts, 
excepting the central nucleus 4, and the sternal element c, 
may still be referred to fig. O, within whose persistent 
whole quantity the remains of fig. P find their homologues. 
Now, fig. A is a proportional quantity equal to any 
cervical vertebra, so is fig. D equal to the eighth thoracic 
quantity, so is fig. G equal to any lumbar vertebra, so is 
fig. K equal to a sacral vertebra, and so is fig. N equal to a 
caudal nodule. While, therefore, we have every reason to 
interpret figs. A, D,G, K, N, to be proportionals of such 
archetype quantities as figs. B, E, H,L,O, so may we be 
allowed to interpret all the units of the mammalian skeleton 
axis, from occiput to the caudal extreme, as being the pro- 
portionals of their several archetype quantities, each of 
which may be considered equal to any of the serial figures 
marked B,E,H,L,O; hence, as all the series of arche- 
type quantities prove the condition of serial uniformity, 
such as we find in figs. B, E, H, L, O, so must this be 
regarded as archetype unity, the proportionals of which 
quantities establish the variety or species found in the 
skeleton series such as nature has created it. 
The part is not equal to the whole. Fig. N reduced to 
the nucleus 4, is not, now, equal to the whole quantity fig. 
O, but still we may understand that fig. N has been meta- 
morphosed from a quantity equal and homologous to fig. O. 
With this interpretation we follow the law of unity, ren- 
dered proportionally various or special under the operation 
of the law of metamorphosis. And while we grant that 
special variety is the product of metamorphosis or the sub- 
traction of quantity, who is there that will (after owning to 
this self-evident and demonstrable fact) rem in inquiry at 
the point of this admission, and contentedly pursue the 
theme no further? The admission that a lesser form is 
some part of a greater figure or quantity, self-generates 
its own train of relationary ideas, and it becomes absolutely 
impossible to suppress the birth of them. 
When we have reason to believe that the entity is 
a proportional of some greater form, it is not possible to 
separate that idea, as being present with us, from the 
idea which is absent to us. ‘To acknowledge that the 
proportional is the proportional of some unknown whole 
quantity, may be regarded as a positive idea, referring 
to an idea negative; and the positive idea professes 
its own appetency for the restoration of the negative or 
lost idea. The part is the part of a whole—then what is 
the nature of the whole ? 
The progress of all inquiry is conducted either through 
an imaginary cycle or through a right line of finite 
dimensions. It moves either through the orb which 
begins and terminates in itself, or through the linear 
series, which owes its finity to the law of gradation or thé 
metamorphosis of quantity. Whatever be the truth or 
falsity of this remark with regard to other themes, it is 
undeniable that the science of anatomical comparison 
conducts the ideas through these two modes or courses. 
The opposite figures are proofs in form of the same ideas 
expressed in sound. 
We take fig. A as a given quantity or form, to which 
we affix a name, as expressive of one or more ideas which 
it originates within us. This name expresses an idea, and 
this idea is based upon comparison ; for at the same instant 
that we notice fig. A we liken it to something else, and 
this idea is either sense or nonsense, according to the 
stmilitude or the difference apparent between both objects. 
If we liken fig. A to either the head of a crosier or the 
handle of a Crusader’s sword, this comparison is mere 
nonsense when weighed in the presence of the law of its 
But if we study and. observe fig. A through 
all its increasing phases, and, time after time compare 
the ens to itself, we will observe, that, like the crescent 
formation. 
moon, it fills its horns, and proves itself, as it now stands, 
to be a proportional of the circle, the orb, or whole quan- 
tity. All the stages of its plus imcrease describe the 
progress through the cycloid, and all the stages of its 
wane, from the full measure of its apparent quantity in 
fig. B, still describe its declining figure to be none other 
than as the proportional degraded from a whole quantity.* 
While it is in the cycloid that we sum together all the 
ideas of that law of metamorphosis which the proportional 
quantities through the series of A,D,G,K,N, on the 
one hand, and the proportionals of C, F,1I,M,P, on the 
other, instance with regard to the plus series of figs. B, EH, 
H, L, O, then we may contrast this latter series, as being 
uniformity, with the proportional series as being diversity, 
species, or the products of archetype plus uniform originals. 
In this comparison the law is rendered apparent, and 
| diversity is proved to be a proportional of cycloid unity.t+ 
* © Quicquid enim unit naturam, licet modis imperfectis, ad inventionem formarum viam sternit.”—Bacon, ov. Org. Scient., aph. xxvi. 
+ “L’ensemble de tous les ordres de perfections relatives, compose la perfection absolue de ce tout. L’unité du dessein nous conduit a 
Vunité de Vintelligence qui l’a congu. L’harmonie de l’univers, ou les rapports qu’ont entr’elles les diverses parties de ce vaste edifice, prouvent 
que sa cause est une. L’effet de cette cause est wn aussi. 
L’univers est cet effet.”,—Bonnet, Contemplation de la Nature, part 1, chap. iti. 
