REMARKS ON THE FIGURES OF PLATE XLVI. 
THE HUMAN SKELETON AXIS IS VARIED AS A SERIES OF PLUS AND MINUS QUANTITIES, AND HENCE MAY 
BE SAID TO YIELD THE IDEA OF ARCHETYPE PLUS UNITY, AS WELL AS THE IDEA OF SPECIAL VARIETY. 
Ss is opposed to uniformity just as subtraction is opposed to addition. The result of these 
opposite conditions of development is the creation of a lesser quantity standing in serial relationship 
with a greater quantity. The integer 9, is followed by the proportional 5. The quantity a+é ig succeeded 
by a—8, and the law of form is to be read accordingly. This law is one of subtracting from a plus 
quantity or unity ; and hence we have proportional variety or species as the result of this law. Not 
only is this law of formation to be traced through the endo-skeleton series of an animal kingdom 
wherein the minus quantity occurs as a species in the neighbourhood of plus quantity or unity, but even in 
the one serial skeleton axis the very same law of subtraction or metamorphosis is seen to operate, and to yield 
all minus serial figures as specialities succeeding or preceding plus archetype unity. The vertebral figures 
of a cervix, loins, sacrum or caudex are as Species compared to the costo-vertebral form, by reason of 
the fact that the former have been metamorphosed from plus originals all equal to the latter. 
The origin of species, therefore, is the genesis of subtraction from a plus quantity : for as 9—1=8 
so have we reason to name 8 as a species of the plus integer 9 ; and, therefore, on observing that 9 
is followed in series by 8, so must we conclude that 8 is special to 9, by reason of the fact that 8 ig 
minus 1, which 1, if it had not been subtracted from 9, could never have produced the species 8,.as suc- 
ceeding the integer 9; and thus we conclude that the. origin or presence of such variety as exists 
between 9 and 8 is mainly owing to the absence of the quantity 1 from 8. Species, therefore, is the 
condition of subtracted quantity ; and uniformity must, therefore, depend upon the presence of that 
If 8 be special to 9, by the loss of 1, go will 
The 
quantity which, when subtracted, gives rise to species. 
the addition of 1 to 8 make 9, or the equal to 9 and 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, constitute a uniform series. 
addition of that quantiy which we know to be lost at cervix, loins, sacrum or caudex, will re-establish 
the plus costo-vertebral uniform series, and by the contrast with this original plus we read the present 
created fitness of that which is now in minus character. 
If we 
Oe ee 
Between any two forms of skeleton quantity, one of 
which shall produce a plus amount of elementary parts 
and the other a minus proportion of the like elements, we 
hold it to be totally impossible for any one to establish the 
ideas of unity or to appreciate the law of formation by 
"any other mode of interpretation except by equating 
minus with plus, and reading minus as a proportional of 
plus. 
When we discover that two individuals of one and the 
same species may be thus produced as plus and minus, 
who is there that can rationally refuse to interpret that 
the lesser figure is a proportional of the greater ? 
once grant this position in the interpretation of the plus and 
minus varieties of individuals of one species, who then can 
refuse to grant the like rule for interpreting the varieties 
of two or more individuals of distinct species, when 
we find that plus and minus quantities exist as the only 
difference between them ? 
Evidently it is required that we should first understand 
the meaning of plus and minus variation between all figures 
of the type opposite, and know how the uniformity of this 
one species becomes interrupted, before we undertake the 
