) REMARKS ON THE FIGURES OF PLATE XLVI. 
task of establishing uniformity between all the skeleton 
quantities of the four classes. 
In the figure opposite we see a serial order of plus and 
minus quantities, and this renders the fact salient that 
such a form is various to itself, when we compare the 
units of one region with those of another. The unit 
marked 7 a, is a minus proportional of the first thoracic 
quantity marked 8ac6, and the unit marked 20a, is 
likewise a proportional of the last thoracic quantity 19 a. 
This cannot be for a moment doubted, forasmuch as we 
now and then discover units 7 and 20 to produce quantities 
which equal those of units 8 and 19; we mean such quan- 
tities as the “anomalous cervical and lumbar ribs.” 
In the opposite form we meet with units 7 and 20, pro- 
duced as we now see them. In another form of the same 
species as that opposite, we discover units 7 and 20 to 
simulate the quantities of units 8 and 19; and therefore 
it is that we are called upon to interpret units 7 and 20 of 
the figure here represented to be proportionals of such 
quantities as units 8 and 20. Once grant this, and we 
cannot deny the like interpretation to all the serial units 
which succeed unit 20 and which precede unit 7; and 
hence must arise the following reading : viz., that a-cer- 
vical and a lumbar series of units are proportionals 
fashioned from thoracic archetypes. 
When we learn to interpret unit 20 a, as a proportional 
of such a quantity as unit 194, it is equal to saying that 
originally both quantities were in the plus condition of 194, 
and equal, also, to the knowledge that the lesser has been 
fashioned from a greater, by process of a law of formation. 
This, then, draws after it a connected chainwork of facts, 
all interpretable by the same law. 
The cervical and lumbar regions of the opposite figure 
are minus quantities, compared to the plus thoracic regions 
of series. The common median line cleaves all the plus 
and minus figures, such as they present themselves in series. 
It cleaves the minus quantities symmetrically, as well as 
the plus quantities; and this can only happen by reason 
of the fact that the minus serial forms are the propor- 
tionals of the plus forms. When we interpret them under 
those ideas, we then interpret the law which struck the 
forms thus proportionally various, and this interpretation 
is equal to the recognition of the plus archetype of series, 
which has thus suffered metamorphosis for the regions 
named cervix and loins. The median line which bisects 
the sternal series 0, 6, in the thoracic quantities of the 
form, as represented opposite, does not bisect this sternal 
structure at the cervix or loins, because it has been sub- 
tracted herefrom. Still, we know that the hyoid apparatus 
of the cervix and the linea alba and lines transverse of 
the abdomen hold series with the sternal apparatus of the 
thorax. 
The opposite figure is constituted of a series of forms, 
whose only difference is caused by a variation in quantity. 
As it stands, we discover that the series is not uniform, 
but, at the same time that we admit thus much in excep- 
tion to uniformity, we are forced to acknowledge, likewise, 
that the interruption to uniformity is the habitation of 
special variety. We find, that where plus quantity exists 
as a presence, there the minus quantity as a species is 
Thus 
it is that plus uniformity and minus species are naturally 
repellant to each other ; and where the plus thoracic series 
exists it would be as vain to make search for the minus 
cervical or lumbar series as it would be to seek for night 
where Sol is in his meridian. Where plus entity is not, 
absent ; and where this latter is, the former is not. 
there in this very place reigns the mysterious presence of 
species, which is nonentity, or the consequence of quantity 
subtracted. 
The mammalian skeleton axis is produced as a series of 
alternating plus and minus quantities. 
maxillz and the plus thoracic quantities happens the cer- 
Between the plus 
vical gap in series, and this cervix, being in minus condi- 
‘tion, is special to the maxille and the thorax, which are 
in plus condition ; therefore, if we would reconstruct the 
quantities, which are now lost to the cervical series or 
species, we must, in idea, bridge over this hiatus with 
thoracic costo-sternal quantity, and gather our materials 
for constructing this idea, not from the fruitful fields of 
loose imagination, but from the map and volume of natural 
creation and analogical inference, which is akin to mathe- 
matical rule. 
Between the plus thoracic series and the plus pubic 
arches again the ventral hiatus occurs im series ; and so far 
as regards skeleton formation the venter is minus, and 
special to the plus thorax and the plus pubic region. 
Those costo-sternal quantities which are lost to the ventral 
region must be found in nature, ere we can discourse of 
plus uniformity or the law of species and design. As the 
mammal skeleton axis exists, we acknowledge to its fitting 
proportions ; but it.is in the contrast of what it at present 
manifests * with the origimal from which it has been 
fashioned, that we are to track the way and method of the 
law of form. With Nature herself as our guide, we shall 
follow in her train, and never presume to forerun her evi- 
dences ; and with her as leader, we shall hereupon make. 
note of the facts chargeable to her alone: viz., that at the 
minus cervix of the mammal serial axis, appear the crea- 
tions of cervical ribs pomting to the anterior median line, 
where happens the hyo-laryngeal apparatus, and also 
that at the minus venter of the same series happen the 
lumbar ribs, referrmg to the median line, which is 
figured by fibrous bands named linea alba and lineze 
transverse. 
* “ The inferior are dissimilar to the superior parts, except that the inferior correspond in a certain proportion to the superior. Man, therefore, 
has the superior and inferior parts of his body arranged according to natural places in a greater degree than all other animals. For his superior 
and inferior parts are arranged according to the superior and inferior parts of the universe ; and after the same manner his anterior and posterior, 
his right and left parts, have a natural position. The head therefore, indeed, in all animals, is upward with respect to the other parts of the body ; 
but man alone, as we have just observed, being fashioned comformably to the order of the universe, has this part corresponding to the heavens.”— 
Aristotle, History of Animals, pp. 24-26, book i. 
